Table of Contents

Media 3
Paper

Although wood pulp paper was developed in ancient times in China, it was not until the Medieval era that the technology made its way to Europe.

Paper opened a new era in codex development, since wood is plentiful. This has kept it as the dominant page format from ancient times to the modern post-printing press world. The thin pages allowed the evolution of codices into more portable books, compacting libraries to less volume.

Yet, with all the benefits of paper, it is more prone to tearing and experiencing the detrimental effects of insects, rodents, and moisture. Thus, paper did not last as long.

There are way too many surviving manuscripts written in paper to mention just one stand-out one, solely because production continued until the 1800s - well after the printing press came into standard use.