Paper was created by Ts’ai Lun, a Chinese government official.

“Early Chinese paper appears to have been made by from a suspension of hemp waste in water, washed, soaked, and beaten to a pulp with a wooden mallet. A paper mold, probably a sieve of coarsely woven cloth stretched in a four-sided bamboo frame, was used to dip up the fiber slurry from the vat and hold it for drying. Eventually, tree bark, bamboo, and other plant fibers were used in addition to hemp.”  (“Invention of Paper”)

Of course over time paper, a new technology then, advanced further with a development of a “new smooth mold covering that allowed the paper to be removed and the mold to be reused immediately” (“ The Invention of Paper”).  Bamboo combined with silk, animal hair, or flax, resulted in the covering.  Eventually, dyes and starches were added to early papermaking which eventually resulted in manuscript paper.  It was mainly used documentation and records, but with the rise of Buddhism, the need for paper grew.  Paper made its way to Tibet, Morocco, Japan, India, Persia, Central Asia, and finally Samarkand.  Five Hundred years and many advances and travels to other countries, Europe finally received the use of paper.

“Although the export of paper from the Middle East to Byzantium and other parts of Europe began in the 10th and 11th centuries, the craft was apparently not established in Spain and Italy until the 12th century. Early paper was at first disfavored by the Christian world as a manifestation of Moslem culture, and a 1221 decree from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II declared all official documents written on paper to be invalid” (“ The Invention of Paper”). 
The rise of the printing press in the 1400’s soon changed the minds of the Europeans.  Paper could be used to transport and communicate texts all over the known world.