INK OF GRAY COLOR BELONGING TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURYAND ITS CAUSES--INFLUENCE OF THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH RESPECTING INK DURING THE DARK AGES--THE REFORMATION AND HOW IT AFFECTED MEDIAEVALMSS.--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 ADOPTTHE 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 could only be obtained by a reduction of the quantity of gummy vehicles together with an increase of ink acidity. The acids which had theretofore been more or less introduced into inks, except oxalic acid, could not effect such results. Consequently, as the monuments of this gray ink phenomena are to be found belonging to all the portions of the Christian world, with a uniformity that is certainly remarkable, it becomes a fair deduction to assume that the making of inks bad passed into the hands of regular manufacturers who adulterated them with "added" color.
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:
"In England cupidity and intolerance destroyed recklessly. Thus, after the dissolution of monastic establishments, persons were appointed to search out all missals, books of legends, and such 'superstitious books' and to destroy or sell them for waste paper; reserving only their bindings, when, as was frequently the case, they were ornamented with massive gold and silver, curiously chased, and often further enriched with precious stones; and so industriously had these men done their work, destroying all books in which they considered popish tendencies to be shown by illumination, the use of red letters, or of the Cross, or even by the--to them --mysterious diagrams of mathematical problems--that when, some years later, Leland was appointed to examine the monastic libraries, with a view to the preservation of what was valuable in them, he found that those who had preceded him had left little to reward his search."Bale, himself an advocate for the dissolution of monasteries, says:
