Many people know that the historical process from hand-copying to printing was not accomplished overnight. It has gone through a series of complicated and trivial new technologies invented and improved.
Perhaps the most important factor is the emergence of paper, which was invented by the Chinese in the 12th century, and then spread to Europe through the Arab West, and finally began to be widely used in Europe in the late 14th century.
From the 12th century to the end of the 14th century, during this period, from a technical point of view, the spread of paper in Europe is a very interesting history.
Many interesting details are mentioned in the book “The Birth of the Printed Book”. such as:
1. Although people have mastered the technology of papermaking at the beginning, the quality of paper is very poor: it is easy to tear and cannot be stored for a long time. Compared with sheepskin, which people used more often at the time, paper was just an inferior substitute.
2. So at the beginning, most people only dared to use paper to record things that do not need to be stored for a long time, or to temporarily write some drafts, graffiti, etc.
3. People feel that paper is not as easy to use as sheepskin, and the official attitude is more conservative. The rulers of some European countries prohibit the use of paper to issue orders. If the official document is written on paper, you need to copy it to the sheepskin again and destroy the paper.
4. Despite this, paper mills are opening more and more, and even gradually becoming an important industry. This is mainly due to two factors: First, more and more technological innovations have been made in papermaking technology, output has increased, efficiency has improved, and the quality of paper has become better and better. Second, the cultivation of flax became more and more common in the Middle Ages, and the raw materials of paper rags became cheaper and more abundant.
5. At that time, most paper mills were located near water sources. On the one hand, papermaking consumed a lot of water. On the other hand, waterway hubs had advantages in transportation and cargo transportation. Through the development of business, merchants exported tons of locally produced paper to other countries and regions, and people in other places also opened their own paper mills, and eventually the paper was successfully spread throughout Western Europe.
6. In this process, paper gradually established its market position and replaced sheepskin everywhere. In the 14th century, paper has been adopted for official purposes. Royal officials are accustomed to using paper to record things. However, there are many manuscripts that are still used to write on sheepskin (this will not change until the invention of printing and the production of printed books with paper). In terms of durability, sheepskin may be better, but people’s attitude towards sheepskin at this time , More like a nostalgic mentality. The paper achieved a full victory.
From the current perspective, paper is obviously a higher-level technology than sheepskin. The former replacing the latter is also the general trend. Only at the beginning, the quality of paper may not be as good as sheepskin, so people have limited use of it, so they just use it to write down drafts. For formal occasions, they still choose sheepskin.
But in fact, from this step, paper has already defeated sheepskin. Because when you can use a new technology at hand, it will often become easier to use, and eventually surpass the previous alternative technology, which is a matter of time. On the other hand, sheepskins basically have no room for optimization in terms of technology, cannot be copied quickly, and cannot be mass produced.
CeFi today is sheepskin, while DeFi is poor quality paper.
