PAPENBURG, a town in the Prussian province of Hanover, 27 m. by rail S. by E. of Emden, and near the right bank of the Ems, with which it is connected by a canal 3 m. long. Pop. (1933) io,816. Papenburg, founded in 1675, became a town in 186o. PAPER, the general name for the substance commonly used for writing upon, or for wrapping things in (Fr. papier through Lat. from Gr. rarvpos. See the article PAPYRUS). The art of making paper from fibrous matter appears to have been practised by the Chinese at a very distant period. Different writers have traced it back to the 2nd century B.C. Paper first became avail able for the rest of the world in the middle of the 8th century. In 751 the Arabs, who had occupied Samarkand early in the century, were attacked there by Chinese. The invasion was re pelled by the Arab governor, who in the pursuit, it is related, captured certain prisoners who were skilled in paper-making and who imparted their knowledge to their new masters. Hence be gan the Arabian manufacture, which rapidly spread to all parts of the Arab dominions. The extent to which it was adopted for literary purposes is proved by the comparatively large number of early Arabic mss. on paper which have been preserved dating from the 9th century. The material of the Arab paper was apparently substantially linen. It seems that the Arabs, and the skilled Persian workmen whom they employed, at once resorted to flax, which grows abundantly in Khorasan, as their principal material, afterwards also making use of rags, supplemented, as the demand grew, with any vegetable fibre that would serve; and that cotton, if used at all, was used very sparingly. Paper of Oriental manufacture in the middle ages was usually distinguished by its stout substance and glossy surface, and was devoid of water-marks.
Paper was probably first brought into Greece from Asia. There is a record of its use by the empress Irene at about the end of the nth century, but with one doubtful exception, there are no extant Greek mss. on paper before the middle of the 13th century.
facture, passing into the hands of the less skilled Christians, de clined in the quality of its production. In Italy also the art of paper-making was no doubt established through the Arab occupa tion of Sicily. But the paper which was made both there and in Spain, was in the first instance of the Oriental quality. In the laws of Alphonso of 1263 it is referred to as cloth parchment, a term which well describes its stout substance. The first mention of rag-paper occurs in the tract of Peter, abbot of Cluny (A.D. 1122-1150) , adversus Iudaeos, cap. 5.
A few words may here be said respecting mss. written in European countries on Oriental paper or paper made in the Oriental fashion. The oldest recorded document on paper was a deed of King Roger of Sicily, of the year 1102 ; and there are others of Sicilian kings, of the 12th century. A notarial register on paper, at Geneva, dates from '154. The oldest known imperial deed on the same material is a charter of Frederick II. to the nuns of Goess in Styria, of the year 1228, now at Vienna. In 1231, however, the same emperor forbade further use of paper for public documents, which were in future to be inscribed on vellum. In Venice the Liber plegiorum, the entries in which begin with the year 1223, is made of rough paper; and similarly the registers of the Council of Ten, beginning in 1325, and the register of the emperor Henry VII. (1308-1313) preserved at Turin, are also written on a like substance. In the British Museum there is an older example in a ms. (Arundel 268) which contains some astronomical treatises written on an excellent paper in an Italian hand of the first half of the 13th century. In the Public Record Office there is a letter on paper from Raymond, son of Raymond, duke of Narbonne and count of Toulouse, to Henry III. of England, written within the years 1216-1222. The letters addressed from Castile to Edward I., in 1279 and follow ing years (Pauli in Bericht, Berl. Akad., 1854), are instances of Spanish-made paper.