Writing in the Eleven Kingdoms

[DoctorM]

Query--- would there have been either pencils or an equivalent in someplace like Gwynedd c. 1120? My understanding from forever ago is that the technology and appearance of the Eleven Kingdoms is supposed to be about 200 years later than the given date--- i.e., that 1120 in Gwynedd looks like 1320 in our world. Monks and scribes would of course have pens and inks, but how would a bureaucrat make notes?  The Romans used a stylus on a wax tablet, and there's something medieval where a silver rod is used on paper prepared with some kind of solution (gesso?). But is there yet some sort of lead used to make temporary notes?

[Bynw]

That is a good question. Something to research from our own history. Or to ask Katherine on Sunday during chat too.

[revanne]

Pencils were first invented at the end of the sixteenth century in England with the discovery of a large deposit of graphite in Borrowdale in the County of Cumberland ( now Cumbria). It was discovered that the soft substance was good for making marks on paper and worked even better if encased in wood.  It was mistaken  for a form of lead hence the misnomer which persists to this day. The local town Keswick became the centre of the pencil making industry and there is a museum there which I believe is very interesting.

As an aside Keswick and Borrowdale are in the heart of the Lake District, today celebrated for its natural beauty but in earlier centuries noted more for the production of slate and lead.  And as a further personal aside my Dad was born in Workington an industrial town on the coast while his father, a civil engineer was designing and building the jetty in the harbour. As a disgruntled 11 year old I had to walk along it in the rain and pretend to be impressed.

Sorry, Doctor M, a rambling answer, but to be true to the real world the answer to your question is no.

[Laurna]

Little museums like that are so much fun. Often only the locals know about them. I love the information Revanne.  And are you sure you weren't even a tiny bit impressed by the jetty.  There is a jetty to Newport Harbor and as a kid, I always wondered  how in the heck they brought in enough boulders and stone to build it.

[revanne]

I should have been impressed, Laurna, but I wasn't. We were on our to Scotland for the first time and I was very excited (incidentally awakening a life-long love of Scotland in me) and I was not in the least pleased to be dragged off on a wild goose chase to look for the house in which my Dad was born (it had been demolished to make way for a by-pass) and trudge along a piece of stone and concrete in the wind and rain. It was the end of July but that don't make no difference to a British summer.

[Demercia]

I can verify that the pencil museum is fascinating, and the Jetty wasn't.