stuck-on endbands

Stuck-on endbands are a German invention, and have been recorded from the mid-fifteenth century. They remained an exclusively Germanic practice (including Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Flemish-speaking Belgium and most of Eastern Europe) until the mid-eighteenth century, from which time examples of folded paper stuck-on endbands are found in most European countries except Britain, which seems only to have begun to use them in the early nineteenth century.