@CountryMage—
The women in the brothel have what appears to be something very like a newspaper produced on a press. If it was instead made by a scribe on parchment, then it would be a fairly expensive item and probably treated as such. So I think that we've seen evidence of paper and printing technology at or above the level of 15th-Century Europe. (Paper-making could be found in Italy and in Christian Spain in the 13th Century. Actual newspapers made their first appearance in the 17th Century.)
But the other uses that you list indeed were common from ancient times and remained so in the more industrialized nations into the 20th Century. We also want to note conversion of old clothes to bed clothes, such as comforters and quilts.
(Lest anyone misunderstand me, I don't mean to imply the Europeans invented paper-making. Paper-making seems to have been invented in China. But the story is set in world modelled on Europe, so comparisons with European technological development seem more appropriate.)