The more remote of such treatises which have come
down to us seem to indicate the trend of the researches
respecting what must have been in those times
unsatisfactory inks. Scattered through them appear a
variety of formulas which specify pyrites (a combination
of sulphur and metal), metals, stones and other
minerals, soot, (blue) vitriol, calxes (lime or chalk),
dye-woods, berries, plants, and animal colors, some of
which if made into ink could only have been used
with disastrous results, when permanency is considered.

The black ink formulas of the eighth century are
but few, and show marked improvement in respect to
the constituents they call for, indicating that many
of those of earlier times had been tried and found
wanting. One in particular is worthy of notice as it
names (blue) vitriol, yeast, the lees (dregs) of wine
and the rind of the pomegranate apple, which if
commingled together would give results not altogether
unlike the characteristic phenomena of "gall" ink.
Confirmation of the employment of such an ink on a
document of the reign of Charlemigne in the beginning
of the ninth century on yellow-brown Esparto
(a Spanish rush) paper, is still preserved. Specimens
of "pomegranate" ink, to which lampblack and
other pigments had been added of varying degrees of
blackness, on MSS., but lessening in number as late as
the fourteenth century, are still extant in the British
Museum and other public libraries.