CHAPTER VII.
EARLY MEDIÆVAL INK. Forty Centuries of Ink | ||
7. CHAPTER VII.
EARLY MEDIÆVAL INK.
CONTROVERSIES AMONG HEBREW SCHOLARS RELATING TO RITUALISTIC INKS—THE CLASS OF INKS EMPLOYED BY THE FRENCH AND GERMAN JEWS—CONVENTION OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM JEWISH CENTERS—SUBMISSION OF THEIR DIFFERENCES TO MAIMONIDES—HE DEFINES TALMUDIC INK—SIXTH CENTURY REFERENCE TO "GALL" INK—ASSERTION OF HOTZ-OSTERWALD THAT EXCLUSIVE OF THE INDIAN INK, THE WRITING PIGMENTS OF ANTIQUITY HAVE NEVER BEEN INVESTIGATED—HIS BELIEF THAT YEAST FORMED A PORTION OF THEM—SOME OTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT—ANCIENT FORMULAS ABOUT THE LEES OF WINE IN INK-MAKING—COMMENTS ON INK-MAKING BY PLINY—ANCIENT FORMULA OF POMEGRANATE INK—SECRETA BY THE MONK THEOPHILUS—WHAT THE, THORN TREE HE REFERS TO REALLY IS—IDENTITY OF THE MYROBOLAM INK OF THE MOST REMOTE ANTIQUITY WITH THE POMEGRANATE INK OF THE MIDDLE AGES—THE USES OF THE ACACIA TREE.
MOST of the documents of early mediæval times which remain to us containing ink in fairly good condition, like charters, protocols, bulls, wills, diplomas, and the like, were written or engrossed with "Indian" ink, in which respect we of the present century continue to follow such established precedent when preparing important written instruments. It is not remarkable, therefore, that the black inks of the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth centuries preserve
During the twelfth and first years of the thirteenth centuries there were bitter controversies among Talmudic (Hebrew) scholars, relative to the character of the ink to be employed in the preparation of ritualistic writings. Nice distinctions were drawn as to the real meaning of the word deyó as understood by the Jews of the western part of the world, and the Arabic word alchiber, as then understood nearer Palestine and the other eastern countries.
The French Jews were using "tusche" (typical of the "Indian" ink), while the Germans were employing "pomegranate" and "gall" inks. Representatives from interested religious Jewish centers came together and resolved to submit their differences for final adjustment to Maimonides, born in Spain, A. D. 1130 , and died A. D. 1204—the then greatest living Hebrew theologian and authority on biblical and rabbinical laws. Discarding all side issues, their differences were seemingly incorporated into three questions and thus propounded to him:
1. Is the Talmudic deyó identical with alchiber?
2. Of what ingredient should the Talmudic deyó consist, if it is not the same as alchiber?
3. Is alchiber to be understood as relating to the gall-apple and chalkanthum (blue vitriol)?
To the first and third questions Maimonides declared that deyó and alchiber were not identical; and for the reasons that the Talmud declares deyóto be a writing material which does not remain on the surface on which it is placed and to be easily effaced. On the other hand alchiber contains gum and other things which causes it to adhere to the writing surface.
To the second question he affirmed that the Talmud distinguishes a double kind of deyó, one containing little or no gum and being a fluid, and the other referring to "pulverized coal of the vine, soot from burning olive oil, tar, rosin and honey, pressed into plates to be dissolved in water when wanted for use." Furthermore, while the Talmud excludes the use of certain inks of which iron vitriol was one, it does not exclude atramentum, (chalkanthum, copper vitriol), because the Talmud never speaks of it. He insisted that the Talmud requires a dry ink (deyó).
As one of the last entries made in the Talmud (a great collection of legal decisions by the ancient Rabbis, Hebrew traditions, etc., and believed to have been commenced in the second century of the Christian era) is claimed to belong to the sixth century, mentions gall-apples and iron (copper) vitriol, it must have referred to "gall" ink. Further investigation discloses the fact that such galls were of Chinese origin and as we know they do not contain the necessary ferment which the aleppo and other galls possess for inducing a transformation of the tannin into gallic acid, no complete union could therefore obtain. Hence the value of this composition was limited until the time when yeast and other materials were introduced to overcome its deficiencies.
Hotz-Osterwald of Zurich, antiquarian and scholar, has asserted that with the exception of the carbon inks employed on papyrus, the writing pigments of antiquity and the Middle Ages have scarcely been investigated. The dark to light-brown pigment, hitherto a problem, universally used on parchment, he contends upon historical, chemical and microscopic evidence is identical with œno-cyanin and was prepared for the most part from yeast, and was first employed
My own observations in this direction confirm and establish the fact that it was the custom in the early centuries of the Christian era to utilize yeast or an analogous compound as part of the composition of ink, to which was added sepia, or the rind of the pomegranate apple previously dissolved by heat in alkaline solutions.
This analogous compound was probably the material procured from wine lees (dregs), deposited after fermentation has commenced, and which after considerable application of heat yields not only most of the tannin contained in the stones and fruit stalks, but a viscid compound characteristic of gelatine and of a red-purple color which in course of time changes to brown.
Bloxam says that the coloring matter of grapes and of red wine appears to be "cyanin."
One of the methods of treating wine lees, as translated in the eighteenth century from an old Italian secreta, is sufficiently curious to partly quote:
The "lees of wine," in connection with the ancient methods of ink-making is also referred to by the younger Pliny in his twenty-fifth book, which the Edinburgh Review has carefully translated and printed:
There are but few exceptions respecting the general sameness of ink receipts of the succeeding centuries, one of which is the "Pomegranate," credited to the seventh century but really belonging to an earlier period:
Following this formula and without any modifications,
A less ancient "Secreta," signed by the Italian monk "Theophilus," who lived about the commencement of the eleventh century, is most interesting:
After reciting many receipts which pertain to other arts, this good old monk concludes:
The "thorn" trees which Theophilus mentions are asserted by some writers (with whom I do not agree) to be those commonly known as the "Norway spruce," a species of pine of lofty proportions sometimes rising to the height of 150 feet with a trunk from four to five feet in diameter. It lives to a great age believed to exceed in many instances 450 years. The leaves (needles, thorns) are short but stand thickly upon the branches and are of a dusky green color shining on the upper surface; the fruit is nearly cylindrical in form and of a purple color covered with scales ragged at the edges. It is a native of Europe and Northern Asia. It furnishes the material known as Burgundy pitch which is obtained by removing the juice which is secreted in the bark of the tree; it is purified by a melting process and straining either through a cloth or a layer of straw. It gives forth a
An ink prepared after the method laid down by this monk, assuming that he referred to the spruce-pine, while troublesome to write with, would be almost as lasting as "Indian" ink and would be most difficult to erase from parchment into which it would be absorbed due to its alcoholic qualities.
"The ink," remarks Montfaucon, "which we see in the most ancient Greek manuscripts, has evidently lost much of its pristine blackness; yet neither has it become altogether yellow or faint, but is rather tawny or deep red, and often not far from a vermillion." While there are some monuments of this kind of ink in fair condition of the fourth and succeeding centuries, they aggregate but a very small proportion of the vast number of principally Indian ink specimens which remain to us of those epochs. As exemplars, however, of a forgotten class of inks belonging to a still more remote antiquity, careful research adduces certain proof of their existence more than nine hundred years before the Christian era commenced.
Reference has earlier been made to the ancient Myrobolam ink, which was characteristically the same in color phenomena as those which Montfaucon mentions. These "tawny" colored inks I estimate were products obtained from the "thorn" trees spoken of by the monk Theophilus. The thorn trees were of two species. The pomegranate, anciently called the "Punic apple," because it was largely employed by the Carthagenians for the purposes of dyeing and tanning; and the acacia, known in Egyptian times as the lotus. The former was held in such high esteem that the Arabians and Egyptians made it an emblem
The products of these thorn, trees were collectively used together as ink, most of the tannin being obtained from the pomegranate, and the gum from the acacia.
CHAPTER VII.
EARLY MEDIÆVAL INK. Forty Centuries of Ink | ||