In Papirio: The Introduction and Acceptance of Paper in Medieval England, 1275-1400

Abstract

This thesis investigates the production of English paper records and personal paper books between 1275 and 1400. This is an understudied yet distinctive period when the spread of paper in administrative centers led to the development of new writing practices. Generally, scholars have accepted a basic binary in the development of paper use in medieval Europe, ‘before’ and ‘after’ print. However, this study proposes two stages of paper adoption before the advent of printed books. Before 1400, paper use was characterized by writers adopting and experimenting with it in administrative tasks and personal books. By the fifteenth century, paper became more commonly used in commercial book production and was gradually accepted among the mainstream reading public. This important distinction is difficult to observe because of the rich surviving archival presence of post-1400 paper books that overshadow earlier examples. The premise of this thesis is that the fourteenth century was a formative period in the production of paper records and books anchored in the textual communities of clerks.

This thesis examines the specific professional contexts in which paper was used by institutions and experimented with by individual clerks. This led to changes in record-keeping and individual writing practices that can be identified in making first-generation paper books. The information gathered from studying early paper records, and this new corpus of pre-1400 paper books shed light on the writing practices of clerks who produced and used them. The picture that this study provides highlights the writing habits and personal motivations of the writers and has led to new discoveries, including the authorship of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 33.