“The invention of paper is credited to Ts’ai Lun, a Chinese, in the early years of the second century. . . .

It took a thousand years for Ts’ai Lun’s idea to reach Europe. In the interval paper was produced in Japan, early in the seventeenth century. In the eighth it appeared in Samarkand; the process is though to have been picked up by Arabs from Chinese prisoners. The Moors may have carried paper-making into Europe. The year 1085 is given as the date of a mill for making paper at Jativa, Spain, that produced a rag sheet, chiefly of linen fibers.”

–Warren Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word, 1970.