When one has the opportunity to handle and possibly work with some early rag papers, it becomes apparent how different each one is. The better papers reflect the qualities of the fibers used as well as the skill of the vatman. Others bear witness to short-sighted or clumsy attempts and are now weak, brown, brittle, or foxed. A paper is intrinsically what it is made of: the fibers and their preparation for the vat. If the processing allows, the fibers can still manifest the qualitites they were known for when sold as cloth and the papers might still be around in a few hundred years for someone to admire.
A cotton rag sheet of paper made from sensitively processed pulp will have the characteristics of cotton; a linen sheet the characteristics of linen. Linen and cotton are quite different and yet similar enough to have caused great concern to the linen industry when cotton became a serious competitor in the European textile market. Cotton is still an imported fiber, while hemp and flax are the only fibers for cloth European countries can grow in quantity. Since cotton was an inexpensive import, the linen industry has maintained its place in the market by justifying the higher cost of linen by emphasizing its special qualities.
The differences between cotton and linen are easy to visualize if you compare a linen suit to a cotton suit. Linen has body, a natural sheen and is very cool. Cotton, on the other hand, is valued for its softness and matte finish (although cotton is sometimes chemically treated to give it lustre.) Flax is a crisp fiber, which accounts for all the wrinkles in a linen suit. Type can 'crease' the surface of a linen rag paper, which gives a clean impression. The well-defined line of a 16th Century Durer woodblock would probably be softer if printed on an all cotton rag/linter paper.
Flax, and thus linen, has the ability to absorb moisture rapidly, which affects ink, paint and watercolor absorbency. It has the added advantage of increasing its strength when wet by up to 20%. This explains the ability of linen to withstand continued laundering, which results in an exceptionally long life. Cotton does not lose strength when wet, but it cannot stand the wear and tear that linen can. Some of the early combination rag papers have survived a few hundred years of use. Many modern cotton rag/linter papers have not stood up nearly as well to abrasion. These papers have a tendency to fluff when used in a utilitarian function such as covering a book. (1)
Cotton and linen differ both morphologically and in chemical composition. The cotton plant flowers and produces a fruit or boll which opens, exposing the seeds which are covered with long cotton hairs or fibers known as lint. The shorter hairs on the seed are known as linters. As the fiber dries out it twists into its characteristic convolutions of approximately 200 to the inch. This gives the fiber considerable extension. Flax (linum usitatissimum) is grown mainly for two purposes: linseed oil and fibers suitable for cloth. Linseed oil is produced from a plant gone to seed which has short stalks and coarse woody fibers. The flax grown for fibers has a long smooth stalk with few branches. The fibers are the soft bast under the straw which surrounds the inner woody core, hence the classification of flax as a bast fiber, like kozo, mitsumata, and gampi, the Japanese papermaking fibers. Unlike the single-celled cotton fiber, flax yields multicellular fibers. The flax fibers can separate into fibrils which in turn can separate into fibrillae and on into smaller and smaller fibrillae. It is a compact, very strong and relatively inextensible fiber with a characteristic firm hand. (2)
The chemical composition of flax and cotton is quite different. Because cotton is almost pure cellulose which is readily available from the seed, the processing of cotton into thread is much less involved than the processing of flax. While raw cotton is approximately 85% cellulose, the raw bast fiber flax is anywhere from 56% to 65% cellulose. Hemicellulose, lignin, pectin, wax and fat all contribute to holding the fiber bundles together as an integral part of the plant. These non-cellulosics are common to all bast fibers in varying proportions. If most non-cellulosics are not extracted by alkaline treatments, they can contribute to the breakdown of the cellulose. The treatment, however, should be controlled so that the strength and lustre of flax and linen are not avoidably reduced by completely stripping the fiber.
Flax is a highly individual fiber and each batch must be assessed by the mills for its capabilities. This requires careful, experienced observation of the fibers at each step. No rigid set of rules has ever proved profitable.
Flax is harvested by pulling, not cutting, which would damage the fiber ends and inhibit the ease of drawing the fibers out into thinner strands. The act of pulling and not cutting is followed throughout its processing. The flax plant must be retted in order to release the fiber from the gummy matter holding it all together. Water retting is a bacterial action which can take place in tanks, dams or rivers. Dew retting is accomplished by spreading the flax onto fields where molds work on the pectins. Dew retting gives a greyer, less consistent fiber. The flax plant is broken and pulled between wooden bars, or scutched, to remove the woody core. The surrounding straw is brittle and high in lignin, so it is removed and the bast fibers are further cleaned by combing, or hackling, through a series of finer and finer combs. The hanks of flax are known as dressed line at this point.
Linen cloth was and still is boiled with an alkali and rinsed repeatedly in order to remove most of the lignins, pectins, and other non-cellulosics which promote mildew, rotting and discoloration of the cloth. The chemical used for boiling was potash (potassium hydroxide) which is naturally made from wood ashes. High quality linen is not raw or 'unbleached'. The yarn or textile must be boiled to ensure that the major portion of the non-cellulosics are removed. It must then be thoroughly rinsed to remove the alkaline agents which, if left on the fiber, would cause the fabric to yellow.
To further whiten the linen, sun bleaching was used to remove the natural coloring matter. (3) The process involved a series of alkaline boils and fermentations, then grassings, laying the cloth out on the grass, sometimes for as long as eight months. (4)
There is a striking similarity between the processing of the bast fiber flax and the bast fibers used in Japan for handmade paper. Kozo, mitsumata, and gampi must also be removed from the woody core. In Japan this is done by steaming the young trees and peeling off the inner and outer bark. Before scraping off the outer black bark, the fibers are often soaked. (5)
Just as high quality linen is boiled to 'finish' the cloth, the Japanese papermakers boil their fibers in an alkaline solution to remove most non-cellulosic constituents. Like the early linen manufacturers, traditional Japanese papermakers also use potash for boiling. (6) Rinsing after boiling is recognized by both Japanese papermakers and linen manufacturers to be crucial to the ultimate quality of the product.
The Japanese sun bleaching of the fiber after cooking parallels the bleachings and grassings, although no alkaline treatments or fermentations seem to be involved. The Japanese bast fibers are ready for beating at this point, but the early Western papers were made from rags, which necessitated further processing, and not the bast fibers themselves. Once the textile reached private homes during the Renaissance, laundering in potash soaps continued the process of softening the fabric. At a time when all cloth was hand woven from hand-spun threads, they must have truly been rags before they went to the papermaker.
The more willing the fibers are to separate, the less cutting will go on in the beating process. Early papermakers broke down the fabric by a retting or fermentation process. This could mean piling the rags in stone vats for five or six weeks or simply until the stench was too much. The fermentation process could be quite wasteful, but it may well account for the strength of the early papers.
Early papermakers used wooden stampers to beat the rags by drawing the material out of the cloth into untwisted, brushed out fibers. Modern Japanese papermakers still use stampers to draw out the fibers to avoid cutting and unnecessary shortening.
Today linen rags are scarce. Substitution of flax should give papers the same firm handle and scuff resistance of those early papers, but an under-processed bast fiber is recognized by both the linen industry and Japanese papermakers as unsuitable for high quality products. Insensitive processing is just as unsuitable. The basic principle is to maintain the strength of the fiber while removing most of the lignins, pectins and other non-cellulosics in a gentle, well-rinsed, alkaline boil. That a paper made with linen would also be extremely durable and have the native characteristics of flax depends entirely on the processing of the fiber before it reaches the papermaker's vat. Harsh processing renders the intrinsic properties of flax, as of any fiber, into just another overprocessed cellulose.
No one is really sure of the techniques of the Renaissance papermakers and which of the many variables are responsible for the character and durability of the early papers. It is not even economically feasible to recreate the early hand processes completely. In order to make papers which have the properties of the 15th and 16th Century linen/cotton rag papers, the challenge lies in finding sensitive mechanical means which will parallel the work of the early linen manufacturers, launderers and beggars as well as papermakers. Applying the techniques and principles used to prepare bast fibers by both the linen industry and Japanese papermakers might help to make flax papers which will later testify to the success of the 20th Century renaissance of hand papermaking.
Notes: 1. This must also be a function of the surface gelatin sizing used in the Renaissance. Modern internal sizes do not form a continuous film over the surface of the paper, but coat each fiber in the vat before the sheet is formed. 2. What may appear as increased fiber length during wet processing is the fibers slipping and drawing out into finer strands. 3. Chlorine was discovered and introduced in the late 18th Century. 4. In Ireland watchmen sat in huts on the bleaching greens to keep thieves and cattle off the linen. Death was the penalty for stealing linen. 5. Is it possible that this is a bacterial process similar to water retting? 6. Lime (calcium hydroxide) was introduced to both in the latter half of the 18th Century. By the 19th Century, stronger chemicals such as soda ash (sodium carbonate) and caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) were in use in Europe. They were eventually introduced as cooking agents in Japan as well. These chemicals save time, but must be watched carefully because the slightest variation can weaken the fibers.
