Remember how I said the paper in playing cards was linen? Yeah, about that... With the caveat that we're talking about a very large geographical area and time frame: I was wrong. Linen is only number two on the list of materials. It appears that hemp is number one on the list. I thought that linen rags constituted the largest ingredient that went into making paper but in fact it's the hemp material from sails and, more importantly, ropes that constituted the largest ingredient.
Again, big time frame and geographic area, but it appears that hemp is far and away the primary ingredient, supplemented by linen, and then by various other materials. In every case the materials that went into paper were waste materials from other processes or products. Mulberry material has been found in some papers, for example, and this was probably waste from the silk industry in Southern Europe. Cotton fiber is mentioned as an ingredient, but the tow (the short fibers) rather than the long fiber material (called flax fibers) used for making clothing. This from a source on Islamic paper composition. I've even heard allegations, but not yet seen the references for myself, that hair and other waste fibers from animals went into paper production.
While the natural inclination, okay, my inclination, would be to assume that such paper would be rough and very much off-white and possessed of numerous irregularities this was apparently not the case. Pulping was a very organized, if labor intensive, process with strict quality control. Bleaching was a known process and was practiced. Water was filtered to prevent contaminants from entering the process. Paper was pressed, rolled/polished, and even given surface finishes using chalk. One of the English conservation organizations I looked at noted that medieval paper, when new, bore a strong resemblance to 80gsm white printer paper in appearance and texture. Colored paper was even in use.
Yeah, I know, you want references. This blog isn't really about those; it's more of a place where I collect and share some of my thoughts and ideas. Here are a few links:
http://paper.lib.uiowa.edu/european.php
https://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199903/revolution.by.the.ream-a.history.of.paper.htm
http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/reference/books/Gaur-1994-Calligraphy/Gaur-1994-Calligraphy-032-055.pdf
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/collectioncare/2015/04/making-islamic-style-paper.html
http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/COMST/Bulletin1/pp69-70.pdf
I've been working with playing cards for several years now and I'm approaching what I consider a position of enlightened ignorance (I'm becoming aware of just how little I actually know). I have experimented with techniques and I continue to experiment with techniques and I'll share some of the results here when I have the time and inclination. For the past few years I've sort of been confined to doing print on demand using modern printers and modern materials. Now I'm looking at moving past that and producing cards that are printed on paper that's more closely authentic. In that search I've been looking for hemp, linen, and cotton papers of 300gsm that's not a brilliant white and is mostly smooth/polished. It's been difficult to find at reasonable prices. There are any number of high-end craft manufacturers out there who have been in business since the 17th or 18th centuries and will charge you accordingly (or so it seems) but more affordable paper has been hard to find. Still, I keep looking.
I'm updating this because I've done more research but I don't want to start a new post. I read a good analogy: Trying to describe paper-making during the Middle Ages is like trying to describe cheese-making during the Middle Ages. That really sums it up. Indications are that paper-making was a sophisticated process (which means it had a lot of techniques to choose from and lots of ways those techniques could be varied) and the products produced by paper-makers could vary widely, even from the same manufacturer. The documented sorting of fibers meant that manufacturers typically produced at least three grades of paper. Treatment options for rags prior to pulping could lead to large variations in color. Variations in sizing (soaking the paper in gelatin and, possibly, other substances) could lead to differences in appearance and the way the paper reacted to inks. And post manufacturing treatments such as burnishing could produce different textures. All of this means that there's no effective way to say what paper for Medieval playing cards should have looked like.
I'm updating this again. Remember, kids, always check the references. Always.
http://paper.lib.uiowa.edu/index.php#
This website has a link to their collection which has a large sampling of historical papers from the 14th Century on.
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/search/collection/paper/order/date
In looking through this I find that the average thickness of 14th-15th Century papers is: 0.22mm
Now I can check that with a reference source on paper weight (thickness).
http://www.paper-paper.com/weight.html
That tells me the paper in question is about a 199gsm
For comparison that's a modern cardstock. That's almost as thick as the cardboard that makes up a box of breakfast cereal. Because it is paper, not cardboard, however, it is considerably less stiff. This is not as thick as premium calling-card stock, for instance. By way of comparison, common copier/printer paper is usually around 70gsm. That means these historical sheets of paper are almost three times as thick.
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