Ep 164: Iron Gall Ink with Lucas Tucker

That Shakespeare Life

In Cymbeline, Act I Scene 1 Posthumus Leonatus says “I’ll drink the words you send though ink be made of gall” and in Twelfth Night Sir Toby Belch calls attention to a particular kind of ink when he says “Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen…” in Act III Scene 2. Both of these scenes from Shakespeare’s plays are referencing the most popular kind of ink used in Shakespeare’s lifetime and that is iron gall ink. The phrase iron gall ink was a phrase used to describe common, or standard, ink and as Sir Toby Belch illuminates with his lines, the ink was used to dip your goose-pen into to write letters or any kind of correspondence on paper you wanted to write down. The ink was made from a fermentation of oak galls which is partially where the ink gets it’s name, the other part--the iron--comes from the iron salt that is added during the fermentation process to create iron gall ink. Here today to share with us the history of iron gall ink and explain exactly how the ink of Shakespeare’s lifetime was created is historical calligrapher, chemist, and owner at Scribal Workshop, Lucas Tucker.

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