3. Paper

When paper arrived in the West from China, it was regarded with suspicion and contempt. Unlike parchment, it was fragile and given to fading over time. Its use was banned in legal documents, and rich readers had popular books transcribed onto parchment for their conservation. However, as paper manufacturing became cheaper, it grew in prominence.

Paper was made by processing waste fibres such as cloth in water and hammering it with a stamping mill. Layers of the resulting pulp were then skimmed off with a fine sieve. The pulp was shaken up, down, left and right to create a fine cross weave structure, then hung up to dry on ropes coated in beeswax. This draining process left a faint mesh-mark on the sheet from the sieve, and paper makers began to place intricate designs into the sieve's mesh to distinguish their work, creating watermarks. The dried sheets were dipped in gelatin to make them more durable, water resistant and, presumably, delicious.