inkhorn

A small portable container, often made of horn, used to carry ink.

Goe good partner, goe get you to Francis Seacole, bid him bring his pen and inkehorne to the Gaole: we are now to examine thoſe men.

[…]and one man among them was clothed with linnen, with a writers inkehorne by his side, and they went in and stood beside the brasen altar.

Something or someone pedantic, obscurely scholarly.

And ere that we will ſuffer ſuch a Prince, So kinde a Father of the Common-weale, To be diſgraced by an Inke-horne Mate, Wee and our Wiues and Children all will fight And haue our bodyes ſlaughtred by thy foes.

The tale retained its bookish and even inkhorn appeal, since established short-story forms continued to be read, and new ones written.