<P> The use of human and animal powered mills was known to Chinese and Muslim papermakers . However, evidence for water - powered paper mills is elusive among both prior to the 11th century . The general absence of the use of water - powered paper mills in Muslim papermaking prior to the 11th century is suggested by the habit of Muslim authors at the time to call a production center not a "mill", but a "paper manufactory". </P> <P> Donald Hill has identified a possible reference to a water - powered paper mill in Samarkand, in the 11th - century work of the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni, but concludes that the passage is "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that it refers to a water - powered paper mill . This is seen by Halevi as evidence of Samarkand first harnessing waterpower in the production of paper, but notes that it is not known if waterpower was applied to papermaking elsewhere across the Islamic world at the time . Burns remains sceptical, given the isolated occurrence of the reference and the prevalence of manual labour in Islamic papermaking elsewhere prior to the 13th century . </P> <P> Clear evidence of a water - powered paper mill dates to 1282 in the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon . A decree by the Christian king Peter III addresses the establishment of a royal "molendinum", a proper hydraulic mill, in the paper manufacturing centre of Xàtiva . The crown innovation originates from the Muslim Mudéjar community in the Moorish quarter of Xàtiva, where paper mills were a Muslim Mudejar operated enterprise . However, it appears to be resented by sections of the local Muslim papermakering community; the document guarantees them the right to continue the way of traditional papermaking by beating the pulp manually and grants them the right to be exempted from work in the new mill . Paper making centers began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one sixth of parchment and then falling further; paper making centers reached Germany a century later . </P> <P> The first paper mill north of the Alps was established in Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer in 1390; it is later depicted in the lavishly illustrated Nuremberg Chronicle . From the mid-14th century onwards, European paper milling underwent a rapid improvement of many work processes . </P>

How and when was knowledge of paper making established in christian europe