Spread of Papermaking in Europe

Timeline

1. c. 1150–1200Xàtiva · ValenciaThe geographer al-Idrisi wrote around 1150 that paper produced at Xàtiva was "unequalled in the civilized world", showing it was already an established papermaking center. The earliest surviving paper document in Europe is the 11th-century Silos Mozarabic Missal, its material likely from Islamic Iberia. Tradition also holds that records of the Xàtiva mills go back to 1056 and that papermaking existed in Toledo around 1085.
2. c. 1200–1300Northern Italy (Fabriano) · ItalyIn the 13th century papermaking spread from Iberia to Italy via the Mediterranean. Fabriano later became renowned for animal-glue sizing, watermarks and beating techniques, but readings of the early charter claiming a "mill founded in 1276" are disputed. Clear evidence of a water-powered mill appears in a 1282 decree of Peter III of Aragon concerning the royal mills at Xàtiva. As paper prices fell, paper gradually displaced parchment in administrative and scholarly writing.