Edited sentence: In Europe, from about 1450 they were very commonly used to colour old master prints printed in black and white, usually woodcuts.Stencil paintings of hands were common throughout the prehistoric period.Stencils may have been used to colour cloth for a very long time; the technique probably reached its peak of sophistication in Katazome and other techniques used on silks for clothes during the Edo period in Japan.Stencils were used for mass publications, as the type didn't have to be hand-written.The first known book to be printed using stencils was the Bible.This was especially the case with playing-cards, which continued to be coloured by stencil long after most other subjects for prints were left in black and white