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151-457: Only a limited number of primary sources use the term, and it remains unclear whether they referred to a specific guild , to a clan , or generically to Jewish merchants in the trans- Eurasian trade network. Several etymologies have been suggested for the word "Radhanite". Many scholars, including Barbier de Meynard and Moshe Gil , believe it refers to a district in Mesopotamia called "

302-495: A 1 ⁄ 6 -shekel per day freight rate for a 60-gur vessel. A type of guild was known in Roman times. Known as collegium , collegia or corpus , these were organised groups of merchants who specialised in a particular craft and whose membership of the group was voluntary. One such example is the corpus naviculariorum , a collegium of merchant mariners based at Rome's La Ostia port . The Roman guilds failed to survive

453-409: A monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials, but most were regulated by the local government . Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Typically

604-642: A 'tramping' allowance for those needing to travel to find work. As the guild system of the City of London declined during the 17th century, the Livery Companies transformed into mutual assistance fraternities along such lines. European guilds imposed long standardized periods of apprenticeship , and made it difficult for those lacking the capital to set up for themselves or without the approval of their peers to gain access to materials or knowledge, or to sell into certain markets, an area that equally dominated

755-421: A 2-shekel wage for each 60- gur (300- bushel ) vessel constructed in an employment contract between a shipbuilder and a ship-owner. Law 275 stipulated a ferry rate of 3- gerah per day on a charterparty between a ship charterer and a shipmaster . Law 276 stipulated a 2 1 ⁄ 2 -gerah per day freight rate on a contract of affreightment between a charterer and shipmaster, while Law 277 stipulated

906-565: A French-Jewish trader named Isaac ben Dorbolo wrote that he traveled with Radhanite merchants to Poland . The activities of the Radhanites appear to cease during the 10th century. The causes may have been the fall of Tang China in 908, followed by the collapse of the Khazarian state at the hands of the Rus' some sixty years later (circa 968–969). Trade routes became unstable and unsafe,

1057-580: A Yemeni ruler of Rasulids . The bark of fig trees, as the main source of papermaking in this recipe, went through frequent cycles of soaking, beating and drying. The process took 12 days to produce 100 sheets of high-quality paper. During the pulping stage, the beaten fibres were transformed into different sizes of Kubba (cubes) which they were used as standard scales to manufacture a certain number of sheets. The dimensions were determined based on three citrus fruit: limun (lemon), utrunja (orange) and narenja (Tangerine). A summarized version of this detailed process

1208-461: A collection of 11th century Jewish scrolls discovered in a cave in Afghanistan's Samangan Province in 2011 may represent a remnant of Radhanites in that area. The economy of Europe was profoundly affected by the disappearance of the Radhanites. For example, documentary evidence indicates that many spices in regular use during the early Middle Ages completely disappeared from European tables in

1359-678: A connection to the name of the Rhône River valley in France , which is Rhodanus in Latin and Rhodanos (Ῥοδανός) in Greek . They claim that the center of Radhanite activity was probably in France as all of their trade routes began there. English-language and other Western sources added the suffix -ite to the term, as is done with ethnonyms or names derived from place names. The activities of

1510-423: A corporation without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to exercise their usurped privileges. Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto also criticized the guild system for its rigid gradation of social rank and what he saw as the relation of oppressor and oppressed entailed by this system. It

1661-427: A decline in women's labor in south German cities from the 16th-18th centuries to both economic and cultural factors; as trades became more specialized, women's domestic responsibilities hindered them from entering the workforce. German guilds started to further regulate women's participation at this time, limiting the privileges of wives, widows, and daughters. It also forbade masters from hiring women. Crowston notes that

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1812-508: A fine bamboo screen-mould treated with insecticidal dye for permanence was used in papermaking. After printing was popularized during the Song dynasty the demand for paper grew substantially. The supply of bark could not keep up with the demand for paper, resulting in the invention of new kinds of paper using bamboo during the Song dynasty. In the year 1101, 1.5 million sheets of paper were sent to

1963-518: A flap that wrapped the book up when not in use. As paper was less reactive to humidity, the heavy boards were not needed. Since the First Crusade in 1096, paper manufacturing in Damascus had been interrupted by wars, but its production continued in two other centres. Egypt continued with the thicker paper, while Iran became the center of the thinner papers. Papermaking was diffused across

2114-516: A journeyman and entitled him to travel to other towns and countries to learn the art from other masters. These journeys could span large parts of Europe and were an unofficial way of communicating new methods and techniques, though by no means all journeymen made such travels — they were most common in Germany and Italy, and in other countries journeymen from small cities would often visit the capital. After this journey and several years of experience,

2265-401: A journeyman could be received as master craftsman, though in some guilds this step could be made straight from apprentice. This would typically require the approval of all masters of a guild, a donation of money and other goods (often omitted for sons of existing members), and the production of a so-called " masterpiece ", which would illustrate the abilities of the aspiring master craftsman; this

2416-430: A lifetime progression of apprentice to craftsman , and then from journeyman eventually to widely recognized master and grandmaster began to emerge. In order to become a master, a journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called journeyman years . The practice of the journeyman years still exists in Germany and France. As production became more specialized, trade guilds were divided and subdivided, eliciting

2567-466: A man who was not a member, she usually lost that right. The historian Alice Clark published a study in 1919 on women's participation in guilds during the Medieval period. She argued that the guild system empowered women to participate in family businesses. This viewpoint, among others of Clark's, has been criticized by fellow historians, and has sparked debate in scholarly circles. Clark's analysis of

2718-648: A mill near Dartford in Kent . During this time, paper making spread to Austria by 1469, to Poland by 1491, to Russia by 1576, to the Netherlands by 1586, to Denmark by 1596, and to Sweden by 1612. Arab prisoners who settled in a town called Borgo Saraceno in the Italian Province of Ferrara introduced Fabriano artisans in the Province of Ancona the technique of making paper by hand. At

2869-505: A network of cottagers who spun and wove in their own premises on his account, provided with their raw materials, perhaps even their looms, by the capitalist who took a share of the profits. Such a dispersed system could not so easily be controlled where there was a vigorous local market for the raw materials: wool was easily available in sheep-rearing regions, whereas silk was not. In Florence, Italy , there were seven to twelve "greater guilds" and fourteen "lesser guilds". The most important of

3020-513: A result, individual collections of literary works increased in the following centuries. Textual culture seems to have been more developed in the south by the early 5th century, with individuals owning collections of several thousand scrolls. In the north an entire palace collection might have been only a few thousand scrolls in total. By the early 6th century, scholars in both the north and south were capable of citing upwards of 400 sources in commentaries on older works. A small compilation text from

3171-509: A schooling period during which he was first called an apprenticeship . After this period he could rise to the level of journeyman . Apprentices would typically not learn more than the most basic techniques until they were trusted by their peers to keep the guild's or company's secrets. Like journey , the distance that could be travelled in a day, the title 'journeyman' derives from the French words for 'day' ( jour and journée ) from which came

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3322-420: A set of self-employed skilled craftsmen with ownership and control over the materials and tools they needed to produce their goods. Some argue that guilds operated more like cartels than they were like trade unions (Olson 1982). However, the journeymen organizations, which were at the time illegal, may have been influential. The exclusive privilege of a guild to produce certain goods or provide certain services

3473-591: A significant number of women members. John, Duke of Berry documents payments to female musicians from Le Puy, Lyons, and Paris. In Rouen women had participated as full-fledged masters in 7 of the city's 112 guilds since the 13th century. There were still many restrictions. Medieval Parisian guilds did not offer women independent control of their work. Women did have problems with entering healers' guilds, as opposed to their relative freedom in trade or craft guilds. Their status in healers' guilds were often challenged. The idea that medicine should only be practiced by men

3624-487: A situation exacerbated by the rise of expansionist Turco-Persianate states , and the Silk Road largely collapsed for centuries. This period saw the rise of the mercantile Italian city-states , especially the maritime republics , Genoa , Venice , Pisa , and Amalfi , who viewed the Radhanites as unwanted competitors. The Radhanites had mostly disappeared by the end of the 10th century; there have been suggestions that

3775-551: A street which was lined with more than 100 paper and booksellers' shops. In 1035 a Persian traveler, Nasir Khusraw , visiting markets in Cairo noted that vegetables, spices and hardware were wrapped in paper for the customers. In the 12th century one street named "Kutubiyyin" or book sellers Morocco as it contained more than 100 bookshops. The expansion of public and private libraries and illustrated books within Islamic lands

3926-572: A town's place in global commerce — this led to modern trademarks . In many German and Italian cities, the more powerful guilds often had considerable political influence, and sometimes attempted to control the city authorities. In the 14th century, this led to numerous bloody uprisings, during which the guilds dissolved town councils and detained patricians in an attempt to increase their influence. In fourteenth-century north-east Germany, people of Wendish , i.e. Slavic , origin were not allowed to join some guilds. According to Wilhelm Raabe, "down into

4077-482: A word derived from Arabic rizma (bundle, bale). During the 8th century, paper started to replace parchment as the primary writing material for administrative uses in Baghdad, the capital of Abbasids . According to Ibn Khaldun , a renowned Muslim historiographer, parchment was rare, and a great increase in the number of correspondents throughout Islamic territories, resulted in an order issued by Al-Fadl ibn Yahya ,

4228-458: Is as below. Each individual phase was repeated several times. Near Eastern paper is mainly characterized by sizing with a variety of starches such as rice, katira (gum tragacanth ), wheat, and white sorghum . Rice and white sorghum were more widely used. Paper usually was placed on a hard surface and a smooth device called mohreh was used to rub the starch against the paper until it became perfectly shiny. The laborious process of papermaking

4379-679: Is dated to 105 CE. The innovation is a type of paper made of mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishing nets , old rags, and hemp waste which reduced the cost of paper production, which prior to this, and later, in the West, depended solely on rags. During the Shang (1600–1050 BCE) and Zhou (1050–256 BCE) dynasties of ancient China , documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo (on tablets or on bamboo strips sewn and rolled together into scrolls), making them very heavy, awkward to use, and hard to transport. The light material of silk

4530-513: Is evidenced by the Indian talapatra binding methods that were adopted by Chinese monasteries such as at Tunhuang for preparing sutra books from paper. Most of the earliest surviving sutra books in Tibetan monasteries are on Chinese paper strips held together with Indian manuscript binding methods. Further, the analysis of the woodblock book covers of these historic manuscripts has confirmed that it

4681-540: Is reasonable to presume that paper manufacturing reached Sindh (now part of south Pakistan) before 11th-century with the start of Arab rule in Sindh. Fragments of Arabic manuscripts found in the Sindhi city ruins of Mansura , which was destroyed circa 1030, confirm the use of paper in Sindh. Amir Khusrau of Delhi Sultanate mentions paper-making operations in 1289. In the 15th century, Chinese traveler Ma Huan praised

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4832-504: Is traceable to around 12th-century. According to the historical trade-related archives such as Cairo Geniza found in the synagogues of the Middle East, Jewish merchants – such as Ben Yiju originally from Tunisia who moved to India – imported large quantities of paper into ports of Gujarat, Malabar coast and other parts of India by the 11th-century to partly offset the goods they exported from India. According to Irfan Habib, it

4983-611: The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana . Bloom argues that based on differences in Chinese and Central Asian papermaking techniques and materials, the story of Chinese papermakers directly introducing paper to Central Asia is probably metaphorical. Chinese paper was mostly made of bast fibers while Islamic paper was primarily made of waste material like rags. The paper-making innovations in Central Asia may be pre-Islamic, probably aided by

5134-567: The Rhone Valley in southern France and terminated on China 's east coast. Radhanites primarily carried commodities that combined small bulk and high demand, including spices , perfumes , jewelry , and silk . They are also described as transporting oils , incense , steel weapons, furs , and slaves . In his Book of Roads and Kingdoms ( Arabic : كِتَاب ٱلْمَسَالِك وَٱلْمَمَالِك , Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik ), Ibn Khordadbeh listed four routes along which Radhanites traveled in

5285-678: The Song dynasty (960–1279) the government produced the world's first known paper-printed money, or banknote ( see Jiaozi and Huizi ). Paper money was bestowed as gifts to government officials in special paper envelopes . During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the first well-documented European in Medieval China , the Venetian merchant Marco Polo remarked how the Chinese burned paper effigies shaped as male and female servants, camels, horses, suits of clothing and armor while cremating

5436-534: The Tatars , mostly selling enslaved Slavs to the Ottoman Turks. Guild A guild ( / ɡ ɪ l d / GILD ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association . They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from

5587-720: The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers , have been formed far more recently. Membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City , as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer . The guild system reached a mature state in Germany c.  1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century, with some special privileges for certain occupations remaining today. In

5738-757: The collapse of the Roman Empire . A collegium was any association or corporation that acted as a legal entity . In 1816, an archeological excavation in Minya, Egypt produced a Nerva–Antonine dynasty -era (second-century AD) clay tablet from the ruins of the Temple of Antinous in Antinoöpolis , Aegyptus that prescribed the rules and membership dues of a burial society collegium established in Lanuvium , Italia in approximately 133 AD. Following

5889-460: The late Middle Ages and early modern period . Some scholars believe that the Radhanites may have played a role in the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism. In addition, they may have helped establish Jewish communities at various points along their trade routes, and were probably involved in the early Jewish settlement of Eastern Europe , Central Asia, China and India. Besides ibn Khordadbeh,

6040-537: The trade secrets — the guilds' power faded. After the French Revolution they gradually fell in most European nations over the course of the 19th century, as the guild system was disbanded and replaced by laws that promoted free trade. As a consequence of the decline of guilds, many former handicraft workers were forced to seek employment in the emerging manufacturing industries, using not closely guarded techniques formerly protected by guilds, but rather

6191-520: The 10th century. Jews had previously, in large parts of Western Europe, enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the spice trade . The slave trade appears to have been continued by other agents, for example, for the year 1168, Helmold von Bosau reports that 700 enslaved Danes were offered for sale in Mecklenburg by Slavic pirates. In the Black Sea area, slave trade appears to have been taken over by

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6342-506: The 11th century. Papyrus was used in Egypt as early as the third millennium before Christ, and was made from the inner bark of the papyrus plant ( Cyperus papyrus ). The bark was split into pieces which were placed crosswise in several layers with an adhesive between them, and then pressed and dried into a thin sheet which was polished for writing." Scholars of both East and West have sometimes taken it for granted that paper and papyrus were of

6493-482: The 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, and Lübeck 70. The latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain: e.g., Valencia (1332) or Toledo (1426). Not all city economies were controlled by guilds; some cities were "free." Where guilds were in control, they shaped labor, production and trade; they had strong controls over instructional capital, and the modern concepts of

6644-465: The 16th century. A Persian geography book written by an unknown author in the 10th century, Hodud al-Alam , is the oldest known manuscripts mentioning papermaking industry in Samarkand . The writer stated that the city was famous for paper manufacturing and the product was exported to many other cities as a high-quality item. Samarkand kept its reputation for papermaking over few centuries even once

6795-459: The 20th century with the advent of plastic manufacture, some plastic "paper" was introduced, as well as paper-plastic laminates, paper-metal laminates, and papers infused or coated with different substances to produce special properties. The word "paper" is etymologically derived from papyrus , Ancient Greek for the Cyperus papyrus plant. Papyrus is a thick, paper-like material produced from

6946-743: The 5th century but the Buddhist monk Damjing 's trip to Japan in 610 is often cited as the official beginning of papermaking there. Paper was used in Central Asia by the 8th century but its origin is not clear. According to the 11th century Persian historian, Al-Thaʽālibī , Chinese prisoners captured at the Battle of Talas in 751 introduced paper manufacturing to Samarkand . However, there are no contemporary Arab sources for this battle. A Chinese prisoner, Du Huan, who later returned to China reported weavers, painters, goldsmiths, and silversmiths among

7097-459: The 7th century included citations to over 1,400 works. The personal nature of texts was remarked upon by a late 6th century imperial librarian. According to him, the possession of and familiarity with a few hundred scrolls was what it took to be socially accepted as an educated man. According to Endymion Wilkinson, one consequence of the rise of paper in China was that "it rapidly began to surpass

7248-986: The Abbasid's Grand Vizier , for the manufacture of paper to replace parchment. There are records of paper being made at Gilgit in Pakistan by the sixth century, in Samarkand by 751, in Baghdad by 793, in Egypt by 900, and in Fes , Morocco around 1100, in Syria e.g. Damascus, and Aleppo, in Andalusia around 12th century, in Persia e.g. Maragheh by 13th century, Isfahan by 14th century, Ghazvin and Kerman, in India e.g. Dowlat Abad by

7399-495: The Buddhist merchants and monks of China and Central Asia. The Islamic civilization helped spread paper and paper-making into the Middle East after the 8th-century. By 981, paper had spread to Armenian and Georgian monasteries in the Caucasus . It arrived into Europe centuries later, and then to many other parts of the world. A historical remnant of this legacy is the continued use of the word "ream" to count bundles of paper,

7550-702: The Cambridge University 40,000 in 1715. After 1700, libraries in North America also began to overtake those of China, and toward the end of the century, Thomas Jefferson 's private collection numbered 4,889 titles in 6,487 volumes. The European advantage only increased further into the 19th century as national collections in Europe and America exceeded a million volumes while a few private collections, such as that of Lord Acton, reached 70,000. European book production began to catch up with China after

7701-572: The European guilds was tied to the emergent money economy, and to urbanization . Before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business. The guild was at the center of European handicraft organization into the 16th century. In France, a resurgence of the guilds in the second half of the 17th century is symptomatic of Louis XIV and Jean Baptiste Colbert 's administration's concerns to impose unity, control production, and reap

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7852-606: The Islamic world, from where it travelled further toward west into Europe . Paper manufacture was introduced to India in the 13th century by Arab merchants, where it almost wholly replaced traditional writing materials. The evidence of paper use on the Indian subcontinent appears first in the second half of the 7th century. Its use is mentioned by 7th– and 8th-century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim memoirs as well as some Indian Buddhists , as Kakali and Śaya – likely Indian transliteration of Chinese Zhǐ (tsie). Yijing wrote about

8003-514: The Medieval era was an ever-changing, mutable society—especially considering that it spanned hundreds of years and many different cultures. There were multiple accounts of women's participation in guilds in England and the Continent. In a study of London silkwomen of the 15th century by Marian K. Dale, she notes that medieval women could inherit property, belong to guilds, manage estates, and run

8154-580: The Mediterranean empires in book production." During the Tang dynasty, China became the world leader in book production. In addition the gradual spread of woodblock printing from the late Tang and Song further boosted their lead ahead of the rest of the world. From the fourth century CE to about 1500, the biggest library collections in China were three to four times larger than the largest collections in Europe. The imperial government book collections in

8305-501: The Radhanites are documented by Ibn Khordadbeh – the postmaster , chief of police (and spymaster) for the province of Jibal , under the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tamid – when he wrote Kitab al-Masalik wal-Mamalik ( Book of Roads and Kingdoms ), in about 870. Ibn Khordadbeh described the Radhanites as sophisticated and multilingual. He outlined four main trade routes used by the Radhanites in their journeys; all four began in

8456-518: The Radhanites are mentioned by name by a handful of sources. Ibn al-Faqih 's early 10th century Book of the Countries mentions them, but much of ibn al-Faqih's information was derived from ibn Khordadbeh's work. Sefer haDinim , a Hebrew account of the travels of Yehuda HaKohen ben Meir of Mainz , named Przemyśl and Kiev as trading sites along the Radhanite route. In the early 12th century,

8607-418: The Radhanites. While traditionally many historians believed that the art of Chinese papermaking had been transmitted to Europe via Arab merchants who got the secret from prisoners of war taken at the Battle of Talas , some believe that Jewish merchants such as the Radhanites were instrumental in bringing paper-making west. Joseph of Spain , possibly a Radhanite, is credited by some sources with introducing

8758-619: The Sultan deferred delivering the promised clothes, he instead proposed taking the papers stored in the Sultan's library as his present. In another account, the hospitality of a minister in Baghdad, Ibn Al-Forat, had been described by his generosity in freely giving away papers to his guests or visitors. A wide range of papers with distinctive properties and varying places of origin were manufactured and utilised across Islamic domains. Papers were typically named based on several criteria: Bast ( hemp and flax ), cotton, and old rags and ropes were

8909-538: The Tang dynasty, rattan paper declined because it required specific growing areas, was slow in growth, and had a long regeneration cycle. The most prestigious kind of bark paper was known as Chengxintang Paper, which emerged during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, and was only used for imperial purposes. Ouyang Xiu described it as shiny, elaborate, smooth, and elastic. In the Eastern Jin period

9060-427: The Tang numbered about 5,000 to 6,000 titles (89,000 juan ) in 721. The Song imperial collections at their height in the early twelfth century may have risen to 4,000 to 5,000 titles. These are indeed impressive numbers, but the imperial libraries were exceptional in China and their use was highly restricted. Only very few libraries in the Tang and Song held more than one or two thousand titles (a size not even matched by

9211-400: The acquisition of craft skills required experience-based learning, he argues that this process necessitated many years in apprenticeship. The extent to which guilds were able to monopolize markets is also debated. Guilds were often heavily concerned with product quality. The regulations they established on their own members' work, as well as targeting non-guild members for illicit practice,

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9362-541: The apparent exceptions of stonecutters and perhaps glassmakers, mostly the people that had local skills. Gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship. In France , guilds were called corps de métiers . According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, "Within

9513-439: The armourers were divided into helmet-makers, escutcheon-makers, harness-makers, harness-polishers, etc. In Catalan towns, especially at Barcelona , guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society: a shoemakers' guild is recorded in 1208. In England, specifically in the City of London Corporation , more than 110 guilds, referred to as livery companies , survive today, with the oldest 869 years old. Other groups, such as

9664-521: The benefits of transparent structure in the shape of efficient taxation. The guilds were identified with organizations enjoying certain privileges ( letters patent ), usually issued by the king or state and overseen by local town business authorities (some kind of chamber of commerce ). These were the predecessors of the modern patent and trademark system. The guilds also maintained funds in order to support infirm or elderly members, as well as widows and orphans of guild members, funeral benefits, and

9815-522: The binding oaths sworn among the members to support one another in adversity, kill specific enemies, and back one another in feuds or in business ventures. The occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26. In 858, West Francian Bishop Hincmar sought vainly to Christianise the guilds. In the Early Middle Ages , most of the Roman craft organisations , originally formed as religious confraternities , had disappeared, with

9966-450: The capital. Open, it stretches; closed, it rolls up. it can be contracted or expanded; hidden away or displayed. Among the earliest known uses of paper was padding and wrapping delicate bronze mirrors according to archaeological evidence dating to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han from the 2nd century BCE. Padding doubled as both protection for the object as well as the user in cases where poisonous "medicine" were involved, as mentioned in

10117-578: The court official Cai Lun . This plant-puree conglomerate produced by pulp mills and paper mills was used for writing, drawing, and money. During the 8th century, Chinese paper making spread to the Islamic world , replacing papyrus. By the 11th century, papermaking was brought to Europe, where it replaced animal-skin-based parchment and wood panels. By the 13th century, papermaking was refined with paper mills using waterwheels in Spain. Later improvements to

10268-575: The curious Chinese tradition of toilet paper in 851, writing: "... [the Chinese] do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper". During the Tang dynasty (618–907) paper was folded and sewn into square bags to preserve the flavor of tea . In the same period, it was written that tea was served from baskets with multi-colored paper cups and paper napkins of different size and shape. During

10419-510: The dead during funerary rites . According to Timothy Hugh Barrett, paper played a pivotal role in early Chinese written culture, and a "strong reading culture seems to have developed quickly after its introduction, despite political fragmentation." Indeed, the introduction of paper had immense consequences for the book world. It meant books would no longer have to be circulated in small sections or bundles, but in their entirety. Books could now be carried by hand rather than transported by cart. As

10570-466: The decline thesis has been reaffirmed in the German context by Wiesner and Ogilvie, but that it does not work in looking at the matter from a larger scope, as her expertise is in French history. There were exclusively female guilds that came out of the woodwork in the 17th century, primarily Paris , Rouen , and Cologne . In 1675, Parisian seamstresses requested the guild as their trade was organized and profitable enough to support incorporation. Some of

10721-686: The domain of written Persian ("Persographia") in large parts of Eurasia . The oldest known paper document in Europe is the Mozarab Missal of Silos from the 11th century, probably using paper made in the Islamic part of the Iberian Peninsula . They used hemp and linen rags as a source of fiber. The first recorded paper mill in the Iberian Peninsula was in Xàtiva in 1056. Papermaking reached Europe as early as 1085 in Toledo and

10872-488: The economic marginalization of women in the 17th c., and has highlighted that domestic life did not organize women's economic activities. The research has documented women's extensive participation in market relations, craft production, and paid labor in the early modern period. Clare Crowston posits that women gained more control of their own work. In the 16th and 17th centuries, rather than losing control, female linen drapers and hemp merchants established independent guilds. In

11023-529: The eighteenth century no German guild accepted a Wend." In the Russian Empire , from the reform of Peter the Great (beginning of the 17th century ) until 1917 , these were corporations of wealthy merchants, with their own rights. They therefore constituted an Order which was divided, according to property, into three classes: merchant of the first Guild, of the second Guild, and of the third Guild and

11174-407: The entire economy but because they benefited the owners, who used political power to protect them. Ogilvie (2011) says they regulated trade for their own benefit, were monopolies, distorted markets, fixed prices, and restricted entrance into the guild. Ogilvie (2008) argues that their long apprenticeships were unnecessary to acquire skills, and their conservatism reduced the rate of innovation and made

11325-503: The family business if widowed. The Livre des métiers de Paris (Book of Trades of Paris) was compiled by Étienne Boileau , the Grand Provost of Paris under King Louis IX . It documents that 5 out of 110 Parisian guilds were female monopolies, and that only a few guilds systematically excluded women. Boileau notes that some professions were also open to women: surgeons, glass-blowers, chain-mail forgers. Entertainment guilds also had

11476-706: The first to establish a trade network that stretched from Western Europe to Eastern Asia. They engaged in this trade regularly and over an extended period of time, centuries before Marco Polo and ibn Battuta brought their tales of travel in the Orient to the Christians and the Muslims, respectively. Ibn Battuta is believed to have traveled with the Muslim traders who traveled to the Orient on routes similar to those used by

11627-399: The first. The two layers are then pounded together using a mallet to make a sheet. The result is very strong, but has an uneven surface, especially at the edges of the strips. When used in scrolls, repeated rolling and unrolling causes the strips to come apart again, typically along vertical lines. This effect can be seen in many ancient papyrus documents. Paper contrasts with papyrus in that

11778-467: The following account. During the Early Middle Ages , Muslim polities of the Middle East and North Africa and Christian kingdoms of Europe often banned each other's merchants from entering their ports. Privateers of both sides raided the shipping of their adversaries at will. The Radhanites functioned as neutral go-betweens, keeping open the lines of communication and trade between the lands of

11929-515: The form of Chinese paper. According to Jonathan Bloom – a scholar of Islamic and Asian Art with a focus on paper and printing, the connection between Chinese prisoners and the introduction of paper in Central Asia is "unlikely to be factual". Archaeological evidence shows that paper was already known and used in Samarkand decades before 751 CE. Seventy-six texts in Sogdian , Arabic , and Chinese have also been found near Panjakent , likely predating

12080-532: The fuller's mills to drive a series of three wooden hammers per trough. The hammers were raised by their heads by cams fixed to a waterwheel's axle made from a large tree trunk. In the Americas, archaeological evidence indicates that a similar bark-paper writing material was used by the Maya no later than the 5th century CE. Called amatl or amate , it was in widespread use among Mesoamerican cultures until

12231-689: The governing body of a town. For example, London's Guildhall became the seat of the Court of Common Council of the City of London Corporation, the world's oldest continuously elected local government, whose members to this day must be Freemen of the city. The Freedom of the City , effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, and was only bestowed upon members of a Guild or Livery. Early egalitarian communities called "guilds" were denounced by Catholic clergy for their "conjurations" —

12382-513: The greater guilds and the lesser artisanal guilds, which depended on piecework . "In Florence, they were openly distinguished: the Arti maggiori and the Arti minori —already there was a popolo grasso and a popolo magro ". Fiercer struggles were those between essentially conservative guilds and the merchant class, which increasingly came to control the means of production and the capital that could be ventured in expansive schemes, often under

12533-472: The greater guilds was that for judges and notaries, who handled the legal business of all the other guilds and often served as an arbitrator of disputes. Other greater guilds include the wool, silk, and the money changers' guilds. They prided themselves on a reputation for very high-quality work, which was rewarded with premium prices. The guilds fined members who deviated from standards. Other greater guilds included those of doctors, druggists, and furriers. Among

12684-509: The guild itself there was very little division of labour, which tended to operate rather between the guilds. Thus, according to Étienne Boileau 's Book of Handicrafts, by the mid-13th century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris , a figure which by the 14th century had risen to 350." There were different guilds of metal-workers: the farriers, knife-makers, locksmiths, chain-forgers, nail-makers, often formed separate and distinct corporations;

12835-632: The guild meetings and thus had a means of controlling the handicraft activities. This was important since towns very often depended on a good reputation for export of a narrow range of products, on which not only the guild's, but the town's, reputation depended. Controls on the association of physical locations to well-known exported products, e.g. wine from the Champagne and Bordeaux regions of France , tin-glazed earthenwares from certain cities in Holland , lace from Chantilly , etc., helped to establish

12986-595: The guilds in Cologne had been made up almost entirely of women since the medieval period. Early modern Rouen was an important center of guildswomen's activity. By 1775, there were about 700 female masters, accounting for 10% of all guild masters in the city. A survey that circulated in the late 18th century listed that the Rouen ribbonmakers had 149 masters, mistresses, and widows, indicating its mixed gendered composition. A tax roll of 1775 indicated that their total membership

13137-626: The guilds in France. In 1803 the Napoleonic Code banned any coalition of workmen whatsoever. Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter X, paragraph 72): It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently of wages and profit, by restraining that free competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation laws, have been established. (...) and when any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as

13288-451: The guilds of dyers, cotton-weavers, and guilds in the leather industry. They did enjoy full rights in some wood-working guilds, the guilds of coopers and turners. Women also seemed to have extensively engaged in the fish trade, both within and outside of the guild. The butcher and cattle-trade guilds also listed women among their ranks. In practically all of these guilds, a widow was allowed to continue her husband's business. If she remarried to

13439-439: The guilds' concerns. These are defining characteristics of mercantilism in economics, which dominated most European thinking about political economy until the rise of classical economics . The guild system survived the emergence of early capitalists , which began to divide guild members into "haves" and dependent "have-nots". The civil struggles that characterize the 14th-century towns and cities were struggles in part between

13590-459: The industry spread across other Islamic areas. For instance, it is said that some ministers in Egypt preferred ordering their required paper to Samarkand from which the paper was transported all the way to Egypt. In Baghdad, particular neighborhoods were allocated to paper manufacturing and in Bazaar paper merchants and sellers owned distinct sectors being called Paper Market or Suq al-Warraqin ,

13741-405: The introduction of the mechanical printing press in the mid fifteenth century. Reliable figures of the number of imprints of each edition are as hard to find in Europe as they are in China, but one result of the spread of printing in Europe was that public and private libraries were able to build up their collections and for the first time in over a thousand years they began to match and then overtake

13892-415: The key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. Critics argued that these rules reduced free competition , but defenders maintained that they protected professional standards. An important result of the guild framework

14043-516: The land of Radhan " in Arabic and Hebrew texts of the period. Another hypothesis suggests that the name might be derived from the city of Ray (Rhages) in northern Iran . Still others think the name possibly derives from the Persian terms rah "way, path" and dān "one who knows", meaning "one who knows the way". Two western Jewish historians, Cecil Roth and Claude Cahen , have suggested

14194-520: The largest libraries in China. Paper became central to the three arts of China – poetry, painting, and calligraphy. In later times paper constituted one of the 'Four Treasures of the Scholar's Studio,' alongside the brush, the ink, and the inkstone. After its origin in central China , the production and use of paper spread steadily. It is clear that paper was used at Dunhuang by 150 CE, in Loulan in

14345-520: The late 17th century and onward, there was evidence of growing economic opportunities for women. Seamstresses in Paris and Rouen and flower sellers in Paris acquired their own guilds in 1675. In Dijon , the number of female artisans recorded in tax rolls rose substantially between the years of 1643 and 1750. In 18th c. Nantes , there was a significant growth in women's access to guilds, with no restrictions on their rights. Historian Merry Wiesner attributed

14496-409: The lesser guilds, were those for bakers, saddle makers, ironworkers and other artisans. They had a sizable membership, but lacked the political and social standing necessary to influence city affairs. The guild was made up by experienced and confirmed experts in their field of handicraft. They were called master craftsmen . Before a new employee could rise to the level of mastery, he had to go through

14647-461: The major input materials for producing the pulp. Sometimes a mixture of materials was also used for pulp making, such as cotton and hemp, or flax and hemp. Other uncommon primary materials such as fig tree bark are also reported in some manuscripts. Very few sources have mentioned the methods, phases and applied tools in the papermaking process though. A painting from an illustrated book in Persian has depicted different stages and required tools of

14798-561: The manuscript collections of the grandest of the great cathedral libraries in Europe). However, despite the initial advantage afforded to China by the paper medium, by the 9th century its spread and development in the Middle East had closed the gap between the two regions. Between the 9th to early 12th centuries, libraries in Cairo, Baghdad, and Cordoba held collections larger than even the ones in China, and dwarfed those in Europe. From about 1500

14949-566: The maturation of paper making and printing in Southern Europe also had an effect in closing the gap with the Chinese. The Venetian Domenico Grimani 's collection numbered 15,000 volumes by the time of his death in 1523. After 1600, European collections completely overtook those in China. The Bibliotheca Augusta numbered 60,000 volumes in 1649 and surged to 120,000 in 1666. In the 1720s the Bibliothèque du Roi numbered 80,000 books and

15100-424: The middle English word journei . Journeymen were able to work for other masters, unlike apprentices, and generally paid by the day and were thus day labourers. After being employed by a master for several years, and after producing a qualifying piece of work, the apprentice was granted the rank of journeyman and was given documents (letters or certificates from his master and/or the guild itself) which certified him as

15251-587: The modern-day province of Xinjiang by 200, and in Turpan by 399. Paper was concurrently introduced in Japan sometime between the years 280 and 610. Paper spread to Vietnam in the 3rd century, to Korea in the 4th century, and to Japan in the 5th century. The paper of Korea was famed for being glossy white and was especially prized for painting and calligraphy. It was among the items commonly sent to China as tribute. The Koreans spread paper to Japan possibly as early as

15402-498: The most outspoken critics of the guild system were Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith , and all over Europe a tendency to oppose government control over trades in favour of laissez-faire free market systems grew rapidly and made its way into the political and legal systems. Many people who participated in the French Revolution saw guilds as a last remnant of feudalism . The d'Allarde Law of 2 March 1791 suppressed

15553-476: The official history of the period. Although paper was used for writing by the 3rd century CE, paper continued to be used for wrapping (and other) purposes. Toilet paper was used in China from around the late 6th century. In 589, the Chinese scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote: "Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from Five Classics or the names of sages , I dare not use for toilet purposes". An Arab traveler who visited China wrote of

15704-475: The old Roman Empire and the Far East . As a result of the revenue they brought, Jewish merchants enjoyed significant privileges under the early Carolingian dynasty in France and throughout the Muslim world, a fact that sometimes vexed local Church authorities. While most trade between Europe and East Asia had historically been conducted via Persian and Central Asian intermediaries, the Radhanites were among

15855-676: The other hand, Ogilvie agrees, guilds created "social capital" of shared norms, common information, mutual sanctions, and collective political action. This social capital benefited guild members, even as it arguably hurt outsiders. The guild system became a target of much criticism towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Critics argued that they hindered free trade and technological innovation , technology transfer and business development . According to several accounts of this time, guilds became increasingly involved in simple territorial struggles against each other and against free practitioners of their arts. Two of

16006-493: The other hand, most trade and craft guilds were male-dominated and frequently limited women's rights if they were members, or did not allow membership at all. The most common way women obtained guild membership was through marriage. Usually only the widows and daughters of known masters were allowed in. Even if a woman entered a guild, she was excluded from guild offices. While this was the overarching practice, there were guilds and professions that did allow women's participation, and

16157-472: The paper during its forming process. The Fabriano used glue obtained by boiling scrolls or scraps of animal skin to size the paper; it is suggested that this technique was recommended by the local tanneries . The introduction of the first European watermarks in Fabriano was linked to applying metal wires on a cover laid against the mould which was used for forming the paper. They adapted the waterwheels from

16308-478: The papermaking process came in 19th century Europe with the invention of wood-based papers. Although there were precursors such as papyrus in the Mediterranean world and amate in the pre-Columbian Americas , these are not considered true paper. Nor is true parchment considered paper: used principally for writing, parchment is heavily prepared animal skin that predates paper and possibly papyrus. In

16459-560: The passage of the Lex Julia in 45 BC, and its reaffirmation during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BC–14 AD), collegia required the approval of the Roman Senate or the emperor in order to be authorized as legal bodies . Ruins at Lambaesis date the formation of burial societies among Roman soldiers and mariners to the reign of Septimius Severus (193–211) in 198 AD. In September 2011, archeological investigations done at

16610-435: The period is that things change during the early modern period, specifically the 17th century, and become more stifling for women in guilds. She also posits that domestic life drove women out of guild participation. Many historians have done research into the dwindling women's participation in guilds. Studies have provided a contradictory picture. Recent historical research is usually posed in rebuttal to Alice Clark's study on

16761-470: The pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant which was used in ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean societies for writing long before paper was used in China. Papyrus is prepared by cutting off thin ribbon-like strips of the pith (interior) of the Cyperus papyrus plant and then laying out the strips side-by-side to make a sheet. A second layer is then placed on top, with the strips running perpendicular to

16912-564: The plant material is broken down through maceration or disintegration before the paper is pressed. This produces a much more even surface and no natural weak direction in the material which falls apart over time. Unlike paper, papyrus is created by pressing, matting, and pounding the Cyperus papyrus plant, which only grew in Egypt and Sicily, and drying it to create the end product. The words 'papyrus' and its derivative, 'paper', have often been used interchangeably despite referring to different products created through different methods. Although it

17063-501: The practice of pounding and stirring rags in water, after which the matted fibres were collected on a mat. The bark of paper mulberry was particularly valued and high quality paper was developed in the late Han period using the bark of tán (檀; sandalwood ). Although bark paper emerged during the Han dynasty, the predominant material used for paper was hemp until the Tang dynasty when rattan and mulberry bark paper gradually prevailed. After

17214-447: The practice of priests and laypeople in India printing Buddha image on silk or paper, and worshipping these images. Elsewhere in his memoir, I-Ching wrote that Indians use paper to make hats, to reinforce their umbrellas and for sanitation. Xuangzang mentions carrying 520 manuscripts from India back to China in 644 CE, but it is unclear if any of these were on paper. Thin sheets of birch bark and specially treated palm-leaves remained

17365-672: The preferred writing surface for literary works through late medieval period in most of India. The earliest Sanskrit paper manuscript found is a paper copy of the Shatapatha Brahmana in Kashmir , dated to 1089, while the earliest Sanskrit paper manuscripts in Gujarat are dated between 1180 and 1224. Some of oldest surviving paper manuscripts have been found in Jain temples of Gujarat and Rajasthan, and paper use by Jain scribes

17516-667: The prisoners taken, but no papermakers. According to Al-Nadim, a writer in Baghdad during the 10th century, Chinese craftsmen made paper in Khorasan : Then there is the Khurasani paper made of flax, which some say appeared in the days of the Umayyads, while others say it was during the Abbasid regime. Some say that it was an ancient product and others say that it is recent. It is stated that craftsmen from China made it in Khurasan in

17667-644: The quality of paper in Bengal, describing it as white paper that is made from "bark of a tree" and is as "glossy and smooth as deer's skin". The use of tree bark as a raw material for paper suggests that the paper manufacturing in the eastern states of India may have come directly from China, rather than Sultanates formed by West Asian or Central Asian conquests. Paper technology likely arrived in India from China through Tibet and Nepal around mid-7th century, when Buddhist monks freely traveled, exchanged ideas and goods between Tibet and Buddhist centers in India. This exchange

17818-408: The quality of the wig, making it too thin to style. Guild officers pointed out that if the consumer discovers the bad quality, the guild would be blamed, and the consumer would search elsewhere to purchase goods. Women's participation within medieval guilds was complex and varied. On one hand, guild membership allowed women to participate in the economy that provided social privilege and community. On

17969-504: The responsibilities of some trades toward the public. Modern antitrust law could be said to derive in some ways from the original statutes by which the guilds were abolished in Europe. The economic consequences of guilds have led to heated debates among economic historians. On the one side, scholars say that since merchant guilds persisted over long periods they must have been efficient institutions (since inefficient institutions die out). Others say they persisted not because they benefited

18120-472: The rules of guilds of their own. German social historians trace the Zunftrevolution , the urban revolution of guildmembers against a controlling urban patriciate, sometimes reading into them, however, perceived foretastes of the class struggles of the 19th century. In the countryside, where guild rules did not operate, there was freedom for the entrepreneur with capital to organize cottage industry ,

18271-485: The same nature; they have confused them as identical, and so have questioned the Chinese origin of papermaking. This confusion resulted partly from the derivation of the word paper , papier , or papel from papyrus and partly from ignorance about the nature of paper itself. Papyrus is made by lamination of natural plants, while paper is manufactured from fibres whose properties have been changed by maceration or disintegration. Archaeological evidence of papermaking predates

18422-535: The site of an artificial harbor in Rome, the Portus , revealed inscriptions in a shipyard constructed during the reign of Trajan (98–117) indicating the existence of a shipbuilders guild. Collegia also included fraternities of priests overseeing sacrifices , practicing augury , keeping religious texts, arranging festivals , and maintaining specific religious cults . There were several types of guilds, including

18573-412: The so-called Arabic numerals from India to Europe. Historically, Jewish communities used letters of credit to transport large quantities of money without the risk of theft from at least classical times. This system was developed and put into force on an unprecedented scale by medieval Jewish merchants such as the Radhanites; if so, they may be counted among the precursors to the banks that arose during

18724-400: The society poorer. She says their main goal was rent seeking , that is, to shift money to the membership at the expense of the entire economy. Epstein and Prak's book (2008) rejects Ogilvie's conclusions. Specifically, Epstein argues that guilds were cost-sharing rather than rent-seeking institutions. They located and matched masters and likely apprentices through monitored learning. Whereas

18875-465: The squabbles over jurisdiction that produced the paperwork by which economic historians trace their development: The metalworking guilds of Nuremberg were divided among dozens of independent trades in the boom economy of the 13th century, and there were 101 trades in Paris by 1260. In Ghent , as in Florence , the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of

19026-491: The standardized methods controlled by corporations . Interest in the medieval guild system was revived during the late 19th century, among far-right circles. Fascism in Italy (among other countries) implemented corporatism , operating at the national rather than city level, to try to imitate the corporatism of the Middle Ages. Guilds are sometimes said to be the precursors of modern cartels . Guilds, however, can also be seen as

19177-446: The time they were renowned for their wool-weaving and manufacture of cloth. Fabriano papermakers considered the process of making paper by hand an art form and were able to refine the process to successfully compete with parchment which was the primary medium for writing at the time. They developed the application of stamping hammers to reduce rags to pulp for making paper, sizing paper by means of animal glue , and creating watermarks in

19328-619: The traditional attribution given to Cai Lun , an imperial eunuch official of the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), thus the exact date or inventor of paper cannot be deduced. The earliest extant paper fragment was unearthed at Fangmatan in Gansu province, and was likely part of a map, dated to 179–141 BCE. Fragments of paper have also been found at Dunhuang dated to 65 BCE and at Yumen pass, dated to 8 BCE. The invention traditionally attributed to Cai Lun, recorded hundreds of years after it took place,

19479-485: The traditional workflow. The painting has distinguished two major phases of the papermaking process: A manuscript from the 13th century has also elaborated the process of papermaking. This text shows how papermakers were undertaking multiple steps to produce high-quality paper. This papermaking instruction or recipe is a chapter under the title of al-kâghad al-baladî (local paper) from the manuscript of al-Mukhtara'fî funûn min al-ṣunan attributed to al-Malik al-Muẓaffar ,

19630-446: The trip hammer is not known to have been used in Chinese papermaking until after its use in Muslim papermaking. By the 9th century, Muslims were using paper regularly, although for important works like copies of the revered Qur'an , vellum was still preferred. Advances in book production and bookbinding were introduced. In Muslim countries they made books lighter—sewn with silk and bound with leather-covered paste boards; they had

19781-784: The two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but also the frith guild and religious guild. Guilds arose beginning in the High Middle Ages as craftsmen united to protect their common interests. In the German city of Augsburg craft guilds are mentioned in the Towncharter of 1156. The continental system of guilds and merchants arrived in England after the Norman Conquest , with incorporated societies of merchants in each town or city holding exclusive rights of doing business there. In many cases they became

19932-462: The use of trip hammers (human- or animal-powered) in the production of paper, replacing the traditional Chinese mortar and pestle method. In turn, the trip hammer method was later employed by the Chinese. Historically, trip hammers were often powered by a water wheel, and are known to have been used in China as long ago as 40 BCE or maybe even as far back as the Zhou dynasty (1050 BCE–221 BCE), though

20083-581: The various Turkic languages . Through the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans the Persian kaghaz entered the languages of the region through Ottoman Turkish ( كاغد ), including Serbian , where it generated the word for "documentation" (ćage). Historian Nile Green explains that the increased access to paper had a role in the expansion of Persian into bureaucratic and in turn literary activities, that is,

20234-578: Was a required regulation of the yarn-spinners guild. The guildswomen of the gold-spinners guild were often wives of guildsmen of the gold-smiths. This type of unity between husband and wife was seen in women's guild participation through the medieval and early modern periods; in order to avoid unpleasant litigation or legal situations, the trades of husband and wife often were the same or complementary. Women were not restricted to solely textile guilds in medieval Cologne, and neither did they have total freedom in all textile guilds. They had limited participation in

20385-557: Was about 160, with 58 men, 17 widows, 55 wives, and 30 unmarried women. History of paper#Paper in China Paper is a thin nonwoven material traditionally made from a combination of milled plant and textile fibres. The first paper-like plant-based writing sheet was papyrus in Egypt, but the first true papermaking process was documented in China during the Eastern Han period (25–220 AD), traditionally attributed to

20536-467: Was also fragile, sensitive to moisture, and restricted to a scroll format of no more than 30–35 feet. By the end of the 9th century, paper had become more popular than papyrus in the Muslim World. In Asia and Africa, paper displaced papyrus as the primary writing material by the mid-10th century. In Europe, papyrus co-existed with parchment for several hundred years until it largely disappeared by

20687-571: Was firmly established in Xàtiva , Spain by 1150. During the 13th century mills were established in Amalfi , Fabriano , and Treviso , Italy , and other Italian towns by 1340. Papermaking then spread further northwards, with evidence of paper being made in Troyes , France by 1348, in Holland sometime around 1340–1350, and in Nuremberg , Germany by 1390 in a mill set up by Ulman Stromer . This

20838-590: Was in use by the ancient Chinese military more than 100 years before Cai, in 8 BCE, and possibly much earlier as the map fragment found at the Fangmatan tomb site dates from the early 2nd century BCE. It therefore would appear that "Cai Lun's contribution was to improve this skill systematically and scientifically, fix a recipe for papermaking". Cai Lun's biography in the Twenty-Four Histories says: The production process may have originated from

20989-516: Was just about the time when the woodcut printmaking technique was transferred from fabric to paper in the old master print and popular prints . There was a paper mill in Switzerland by 1432 and the first mill in England was set up by John Tate around 1490 near Hertford , but the first commercially successful paper mill in Britain did not occur before 1588 when John Spilman set up

21140-432: Was made of tropical wood indigenous to India, not Tibet. The Persian word for paper, kaghaz is a borrowing from Sogdian kʾɣδʾ, itself in turn possibly borrowed from Chinese (紙). Kaghaz was loaned into numerous other languages, including Arabic ( كاغد )—an early development which shaped the spelling of the Persian word itself — Bengali (কাগজ), Georgian (ქაღალდი), Kurdish , Marathi (कागद), Nepali , Telugu , and

21291-558: Was often retained by the guild. The medieval guild was established by charters or letters patent or similar authority by the city or the ruler and normally held a monopoly on trade in its craft within the city in which it operated: handicraft workers were forbidden by law to run any business if they were not members of a guild, and only masters were allowed to be members of a guild. Before these privileges were legislated, these groups of handicraft workers were simply called 'handicraft associations'. The town authorities might be represented in

21442-439: Was one of the notable outcomes of the drastic increase in the availability of paper. However, paper was still an upmarket good given the remarkable required inputs, e.g. primary materials and labours, to produce the item in the absence of advanced mechanical machinery. In one account Ibn al-Bawwab , a Persian calligrapher and illuminator, had been promised by the Sultan to be given precious garments in response to his services. When

21593-674: Was refined and machinery was designed for bulk manufacturing of paper. Production began in Baghdad, where a method was invented to make a thicker sheet of paper, which helped transform papermaking from an art into a major industry. The use of water-powered pulp mills for preparing the pulp material used in papermaking dates back to Samarkand in the 8th century. The use of human/animal-powered paper mills has also been identified in Abbasid -era Baghdad during 794–795, though this should not be confused with later water-powered paper mills (see Paper mills section below). The Muslims also introduced

21744-508: Was similar in spirit and character to the original patent systems that surfaced in England in 1624. These systems played a role in ending the guilds' dominance, as trade secret methods were superseded by modern firms directly revealing their techniques, and counting on the state to enforce their legal monopoly . Some guild traditions still remain in a few handicrafts, in Europe especially among shoemakers and barbers . These are, however, not very important economically except as reminders of

21895-436: Was sometimes used as a recording medium, but was normally too expensive to consider. The Han dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun (c. 50–121 CE) is credited as the inventor of a method of papermaking (inspired by wasps and bees) using rags and other plant fibers in 105 CE. However, the discovery of specimens bearing written Chinese characters in 2006 at Fangmatan in north-east China's Gansu Province suggests that paper

22046-484: Was supported by some religious and secular authorities at the time. It is believed that the Inquisition and witch hunts throughout the ages contributed to the lack of women in medical guilds. In medieval Cologne there were three guilds that were composed almost entirely of women, the yarn-spinners, gold-spinners, and silk-weavers. Men could join these guilds, but were almost exclusively married to guildswomen. This

22197-453: Was the 18th and 19th centuries that saw the beginning of the low regard in which some people hold the guilds to this day. In part due to their own inability to control unruly corporate behavior, the tide of public opinion turned against the guilds. Because of industrialization and modernization of the trade and industry, and the rise of powerful nation-states that could directly issue patent and copyright protections — often revealing

22348-658: Was the emergence of universities at Bologna (established in 1088), Oxford (at least since 1096) and Paris ( c.  1150 ); they originated as guilds of students (as at Bologna) or of masters (as at Paris). Naram-Sin of Akkad ( c.  2254 –2218 BC), grandson of Sargon of Akkad who had unified Sumeria and Assyria into the Akkadian Empire , promulgated common Mesopotamian standards for length, area, volume, weight, time, and shekels , which were used by artisan guilds in each city. Code of Hammurabi Law 234 ( c.  1755–1750 BC ) stipulated

22499-496: Was to create a standard of work that the consumer could rely on. They were heavily concerned with public perception. In October 1712, the Lyon Wigmaker Guild petitioned the local police magistrates. According to this petition, guildmasters required guild officers to step up policing of statutes forbidding the use of bleached hair or wild goat and lamb hair. The real concern that they had was that bleaching hair destroyed

22650-467: Was transmissible hereditarily. Ogilvie (2004) argues that guilds negatively affected quality, skills, and innovation. Through what economists now call " rent-seeking " they imposed deadweight losses on the economy. Ogilvie argues they generated limited positive externalities and notes that industry began to flourish only after the guilds faded away. Guilds persisted over the centuries because they redistributed resources to politically powerful merchants. On

22801-473: Was used to great effect in Greece and Rome, papyrus has several downsides compared to paper. It was geographically limited by the Cyperus papyrus plant, which was primarily grown in Egypt. The Arabs tried to grow the plant north of Baghdad in the 830s but failed. While not especially expensive, it was more laborious to create papyrus with an even surface, and paper was more abundant and affordable than papyrus. It

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