Abby Reiter
March 11th, 2014
LIBR 280-12 History of Books & Libraries
Professor Elizabeth Wrenn-Estes
San Jose State University
School of Library & Information Science

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Ink

The term "ink" comes from the Latin word for "burnt in", or encaustum. This is due to the way in which the ingredients used in ink, acids and oxidizing materials, ate into writing surfaces (Brown, 1994, p. 73).  

Medieval ink, used in drawing, ruling, and writing, was made from organic materials. 
The base for medieval ink was made a mixture of gall, or gallnuts, and gum. Gall, or gallnuts, were "swellings on trees caused by gall flies or wasps laying their eggs in the tissues of the tree which [grew] a covering over the spot of irritation"  (Avrin, 1991, p. 214).  The tannic acid, extracted from the gallnuts, was a colorless liquid which, when mixed with iron salts or oxygen, turned into black or gray ink.  

To create colored ink, beyond black and gray, other carbon and/or iron salts were added to the mixture for colorization (Brown, 1994, p.73). Rusty-colored ink made using iron salts often times "faded to a red-brown or yellow". Gray-green ink was created by adding copper salts. 

Figure 19
Ink was mostly applied with a "goose quill, its feathers removed" (Avrin, 1991, p. 213)
but could also be diluted with water and applied with a brush to create a wash affect (Brown, 1994, p.73). 

In this manuscript, only three colors of ink are present: black for the main text, red ink for rubrication and green ink used for minimal decoration (see Figure 19).