The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens | Page 2

nations.
The following are translated from the French "Notes and Queries "--
L'Intermediare:_
"A METALLIC PEN IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--M. Reni
de Bellwal, in a very learned volume which he has published recently,
on the first campaign of Edward III. in France, says (p. 95) with respect
to the fictitious pieces (documents) fabricated by Robert d'Artois, that a
clerk of Jeanne wrote the deeds, and made use of a bronze pen to
enable him the better to disguise his writing. This plainly refers to a pen,
and not to a stylus. Is there any record of the use of metallic pens at any
period anterior to the fourteenth century? It is very satisfactory,
however, to establish (as the French used to say) _'les preuves de
1300.'"--L'Intermediare.
In the Vieux-Neuf of M. Ed. Fournier (vol. ii., p. 22, note) there is
mentioned--according to the documents used in the prosecution of
Robert d'Artois, which are in the Archives--'the bronze pen' with which

the forgers in the pay of the count wrote the false papers which he
required. M. Fournier also quotes from 'Montfaucon' 'the silver reeds'
with which the Constantinople patriarchs used to write their
letters."--CUTHBERT, L'Intermediare, 1st June, 1864.
"METALLIC PENS (XV., 68).-Writing was done in the Middle Ages
sometimes with a metal stylus, or perhaps with a metal pen; with the
former on wax, and with the pen on parchment or vellum. 'At Trinity
College, Cambridge, is a manuscript illustration of Eadwine, a monk of
Canterbury, and at the end the writer is represented with a metal pen in
his hand.' (See Bibliomania in the Middle Ages, p. 103). I have in my
possession a metal pen of Dutch manufacture, dating certainly from the
year 1717, mounted on the same pencilholder, with a piece of solid
plumbago, in a memorandum book of the same year."--SAM:
TIMMINS.
"Mr. Le Chauvine Gal, Prior of the collegiate of St. Peter and St. Bars
at Aosta, had in his collection of Roman antiquities a bronze pen, slit,
found in a tomb, among a number of lamps and lachrymatory vases. M.
Aubert has given a drawing and description of it in a work on Aosta. It
was subsequently stolen from him by a collector."--- CHAMBERY, Un
Savoyard, L'Intermediare, 25th May, 1868.
"METALLIC PENS,--In a precious volume (an account of the books of
the Decretalia) preserved in the library of Saint Antoine, of Padua, the
following notice is to be found at the bottom of the last page: 'This
work is fashioned and by diligence finished for the service of God, not
with ink of quill nor with brazen reed, but with a certain invention of
printing or reproducing by John Fust, citizen of Mayence, and Peter
Schoeiffer, of Gernsheim, Dec. 17th, 1465, A.D.' Here, then, we have a
document proving the existence of metallic pens in the Middle Ages.
But has any such pen come down to us? If so, could a detailed
description of it be obtained? On the other hand, I am curious to know
if it is possible that platinum was used in the eighteenth century in the
manufacture of pens, or whether it is necessary to attribute a peculiar
meaning to the 'platinum pen' in the following passage of the system of
shorthand by Bertin (edit. of the year iv., p. 93) (1793). 'Those of steel

and platinum are most convenient; these latter have the advantage of all
others, in that they hold the ink a long time, and run over the paper
easily, and are not liable to corrosion by any simple acid.' I am ignorant
of what the same author means when he mentions the endless pen,
which would certainly be the best. "'--J. CAMUS, L'Intermediare.
"Metallic pens were used before the fifteenth century; they were in use
at the court of Augustus." See L'Intermed. (I. 69, 94, 141; II. 319.)
Consult also Le Vieux-Neuf Ed. Fournier.--A.D.
The following extracts show there have been several claimants, on the
Continent, who profess to have invented metallic pens, made from steel,
in the early part of the eighteenth century; but the reader had better
suspend his judgment until he has read the notes that follow them:
"A manuscript, entitled 'Historical Chronicle of Aix-la-Chapelle,
second book, 1748,' places on record the claims of Johann Janssen, a
magistrate of that place, as the inventor of steel pens. 'Just at the
meeting of the congress [after the Austrian war] I may without boasting,
claim the honour of having invented a new pen. It is, perhaps, not an
accident that God should have inspired me at the present time with the
idea of making steel pens, for all the envoys here assembled have
bought the first that have been made; therewith, as may be hoped, to
sign a treaty of peace, which, with God's blessing, shall be