There had been metal pens, possibly from Roman, and certainly from late medieval times, but relatively few survive and it is difficult to gauge their popularity; and, from antiquity there had been reed pens, which needed frequent recutting.
For almost 1,500 years, people used quill pens to write letters. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, steel nibs were well on their way to ousting the trusty quill.
Parchment Making
Most medieval manuscripts were written on specially treated animal skins, called parchment or vellum (paper did not become common in Europe until around 1450). The pelts were first soaked in a lime solution to loosen the fur, which was then removed.
Copper alloy full pens and nibs existed and were used in Europe and surrounding areas from at least 400 AD until 1600 AD and beyond.
Quill pens were the instrument of choice during the medieval era due to their compatibility with parchment and vellum. Before this the reed pen had been used, but a finer letter was achieved on animal skin using a cured quill.
Pens were incredibly important for the process of creating books and illuminations in the medieval era because the strenuous process of creating a book was done by hand.
Pens have been around for thousands of years with the first pen used in 3200 BC. Have you ever wondered how we went from using a bamboo reed pen to the ballpoint pen we use today? Jump into our time machine to find out where and when the first pens were created.
Iron gall ink was made up from galls (usually oak-galls), copperas [copper sulphate] or green vitriol [ferrous sulphate], and gum arabic, in varying proportions; carbon inks were developed using soot.
The quill pen was replaced by the metal nibs by the 19th century. Throughout the early 19th century, the usage of the quill pen faded and the quality of metal nibs increased. Ballpoint pens also made their mark in the late 19th century, but their patents were not exploited commercially.
In the mid-1600s, whilst many people would have written in Secretary Hand, the Derbyshire poet Leonard Wheatcroft used a mixed hand that is based on Italic. Most of the letters are similar to modern letter shapes. Nearly a hundred years later, Italic was dominant.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe experienced an intellectual and economic revival, conventionally called the Renaissance, that laid the foundation for the subsequent expansion of European culture throughout the world.
In the course of the 15th century vellum was gradually superseded by paper. Some later manuscripts would use a mixture of vellum and paper. usually a vellum sheet would form the outer, or the outer and inner, leaves of a quire while the rest were paper.
In early colonial times, letter writers sent their correspondence by friends, merchants and Native Americans via foot or horseback. Most of this correspondence, however, was between the colonists and family members back home in England.
The earliest material used to write on was clay. It needs little preparation before use, is easy to work and was readily available in Mesopotamia, where the first writing developed. Damp clay could be formed into a tablet in the hand and drawn into with a stylus.
The earliest ancestor of the pen probably was the brush the Chinese used for writing by the 1st millennium bce. The early Egyptians employed thick reeds for penlike implements about 300 bce. A specific allusion to the quill pen occurs in the 7th-century writings of St.
3200 B.C. In ancient Egypt, pens were carved from reed, bamboo, or plant stems. These styluses were used to create hieroglyphs on clay tablets, which was the earliest form of writing in history.
Inkwells gradually fell out of use in the early part of 20th century as the reservoir fountain pen (which needs to be filled only occasionally) replaced the dip pen, which needed to be dipped in ink after writing a few lines.
The Aurora Diamante fountain pen is an exclusive pen that's only produced once a year. The barrel of the pen is made of pure platinum and is covered with over 2,000 diamonds. Out of all the diamonds, 1,919 are located on the barrel to signify the founding year of Aurora.
The model which was used by the Queen was the Parker 51 – a fountain pen which was introduced in 1941. It was developed from 1939 and named so as it was Parker's 51st year. It became one of their most iconic models and although production stopped in the 1970s, it remains popular with collectors to this day.
The first is carbon ink, made of charcoal or lamp-black mixed with a gum. The second is metal-gall ink, usually iron gall, made by mixing a solution of tannic acids with ferrous sulphate (copperas); it too requires added gum, but as a thickener rather than as an adhesive.
The most common type of ink was iron-gall, which was made out of oak galls produced when wasps lay eggs in budding trees. The galls, which are rich in tannic and gallic acids, are collected, crushed, and later infused with ferrous sulphate and gum arabica (sap from the acacia tree) producing a dark black ink.
Ink has its origins around 4500 years ago, and was invented by both the Egyptians and the Chinese around the same time. As far as components go, ink is made up of two key parts: the pigment and the carrier.
What Came First Pencils or Pens? If you look at the history of styluses, pens were technically invented before pencils. Graphite pencils, meanwhile, weren't used in ancient Rome until the Middle Ages. Pens have their own fascinating history!
Reed pen is a pen made from one piece of bamboo or reed? It has a split nib that leads ink to the point of a pen. It is the oldest type of pen that we use, and they have been found in Ancient Egyptian sites dating from the 4th century BC.
Pen and Ink
Some earlier passing trends allowed for women to write in colored inks, with violet being a popular choice for some time. Quill pens were not as common as steel pens, but they were still used by some of the more talented writers.