CHAPTER X.
RENAISSANCE INK. Forty Centuries of Ink | ||
10. CHAPTER X.
RENAISSANCE INK.
INK OF GRAY COLOR BELONGING TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND ITS CAUSES—INFLUENCE OF THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH RESPECTING INK DURING THE DARK AGES—THE REFORMATION AND HOW IT AFFECTED MEDIÆVAL MSS.—REMARKS OF BALE ABOUT THEIR DESTRUCTION—QUAINT INK RECEIPT OF 1602—SELECTION FROM THE TWELFTH NIGHT RELATING TO PEN AND INK—GENERAL CONDITIONS WHICH OBTAINED UNTIL 1626—THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AWARDS AN INK CONTRACT IN THAT YEAR—OTHER GOVERNMENTS ADOPT THE FRENCH FORMULA—INKS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ALMOST PERFECT IN THEIR COLOR PHENOMENA—NO ADDED COLOR EMPLOYED IN THEIR MANUFACTURE.
THE gray color of most of the inks found on documents written in the sixteenth century is a noteworthy fact. Whence its cause is a matter for considerable speculation. The majority of these inks unquestionably belong to the "gall" class and if prepared after the formulas utilized in preceding centuries should indicate like color phenomena. As these same peculiarities exist on both paper, vellum and parchment, it cannot be attributed to their use. Investigations in many instances of the writings indicate the exercise of a more rapid pen movement and a consequent employment of inks of greater fluidity than those of an earlier history. Such fluidity
We can well believe that the influences which the fathers of the Church exerted during the thousand years known as the "Dark Ages," in respect to ink and kindred subjects, must have been very great. That they endeavored to perpetuate for the benefit of succeeding generations in book and other forms, this kind of information, which they distributed throughout the world we know to be true. Most of these sources of ink information, however, gradually disappeared as constituting a series of sad events in the unhappy war which followed their preparation.
The Reformation began in Germany in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and with it the eighty years of continual religious warfare which followed. During this period the priceless MSS. books of information, historical, literary and otherwise, contained in the monastic libraries outside of Italy were burnt.
We are told:
Bale, himself an advocate for the dissolution of monasteries, says:
Passing to later epochs, A. D. 1602, the following quaint receipt proves interesting as showing that the "gall" inks were well known at that time:
Two ounces of Gumme, let that be a part;
Five ounces of Galls, of Cop'res take three,
Long standing doth make it the better to be;
If Wine ye do want, raine water is best,
And then as much stuffe as above at the least,
If the Ink be too thick, put Vinegar in,
For water doth make the colour more dimme."
Shakespeare in his Twelfth Night III, 2, has also referred to them in the following amusing strain:
it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and
full of invention; taunt him with the license of
ink; if thou thou'st him thrice, it shall nor be
amiss; and as many lies as will lie on a sheet of
paper, although the sheet were big enough for
the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go,
about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink,
though thou write with a goose pen, no matter:
about it."
The general black ink conditions for a period of at least three hundred years, if we exclude the sixteenth century, had been but repetitions of each other. They so remained until the year 1626, when the French government concluded an arrangement with a chemist by the name of Guyot, for the manufacture of a "gall" ink without added color and which thereby guaranteed and insured more sameness in respect to desirable ink qualities. That government with a few
Where prior to 1850, inks containing a different base (with the single exception of indigo) were used, they have either disappeared or nearly so and it is not an infrequent occurrence among those who are accustomed to examine old records to find that signatures or dates to valuable instruments, pages of writings and indeed sometimes the writings in an entire book are more or less obliterated.
The black inks of a large portion of the seventeenth century, on documents of every kind, are found to be nearly perfect as to color conditions, which is evidence of the extreme care used in their preparation and the exclusion of "added" color in ink manufacture.
CHAPTER X.
RENAISSANCE INK. Forty Centuries of Ink | ||