Reading the reeds

In 2016, after some unseemly back-and-forth between the Commons and Lords, it was decided that Acts of Parliament should no longer be printed on calfskin. Instead, new acts are now recorded on paper, though, in a classic parliamentary compromise, they will still be bound between vellum covers. Since the first paper mills appeared in Britain at the end of the 15th century —and paper almost immediately became the dominant medium for print — this means that parliament has managed valiantly to hold back the paper tide for over half a millennium. (To be fair, they only stopped writing acts out by hand in 1849, four centuries
after Gutenberg.)

Meanwhile, over the past 15 years, I have come to conduct most of my daily correspondence by email rather than troubling the postal service. I expect you are the same. But I doubt there are many who will be thrilled if their Valentine’s card turns up as an email attachment, and it’s possible that some of us feel a slight wistfulness that our acts of the land are no longer recorded on the same material as Magna Carta.