Basic Steps to Make a Medieval Manuscript Book Parchment to Binding

Skins/Parchment

!   Skins soaked in alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) and lime (calcium oxide – from heating limestone)

!   Stretch on frame

!   Scraped while damp

!   Whitened to make parchment (sheep or goat) or vellum (calf)

!   This creates one large sheet (bifolium)

Goat Skins Soaking in Lime

Dehairing

Stretching on Frame

Bifolium – Justinian 13th cen.

Scribe Steps in

!   Scribe gets skins from parchment maker

!   Parchment cut to size

!   Pricked with stylus and ruled to establish layout

!   When ruling, scribe must work out how many words on page

Scribe Steps in

!   They must do imposing like a typesetter !   Pages are not written in order in while

they will be read b/c bifolium will be folded

!   Standard quire (gathering) of 4 bifolium folded into 8 leaves/16 pages

!   write text of last and first pages on first bifolium.

Cutting Parchment

Prick with Stylus

Ruling Parchment

Ruling Parchment

Writing

!   Scribe cuts quill pen to form nib – sharpened about every page

!   Test pen on scrap parchment

!   Hold pen-knife in other hand to steady parchment and maintain even pressure

!   Make corrections by erasing with knife

!   Parchment surface restored with pounce, a powdered resin

!   Scribe cuts quill pen to form nib – sharpened about every page

!   Test pen on scrap parchment

!   Hold pen-knife in other hand to steady parchment and maintain even pressure

!   Make corrections by erasing with knife

!   Parchment surface restored with pounce, a powdered resin

Writing

!   May leave guide letters to instruct artist what to paint

!   May mark quires in way to assist in assembly of book

! Rubricator added rubrics (titles to new sections) in red

Quill Pens

Use of Pen-Knife English Book of Hours – 1420, St. Jerome

Pen-Knife

Rubrication

Illumination

!   Pages sent to illuminator

!   Artist draws and illuminate initials & miniatures

!   Under-drawing done with dry point – sometimes ink

Illuminator

!   Start with gold layer

!   Apply egg-white gesso to places for gold

!   Lay down gold leaf after moisture from breathe put on gold

!   Body of initial and other images painted with pigment

Dry-Point Tracing of Capital “B”

Gold Leaf

Binding

!   Take finished parchment leaves and assemble

!   Binding is done by sewing successive quires onto leather cords

!   Ends of cords laced through holes in wooden boards and pegged into place by wooden dowels

!   Put on cords and head and foot of book

Binding

!   Boards and spine covered with damp leather which was glued to insides of boards

!   Inside of boards covered with pastedown

!   Straps and clasps would usually be added to keep book in shape, parchment tries to revert to shape of animal

!   Blind stamp or tool leather

!   Metal fitting or plaques (sometimes of ivory) overlaid

!   Sometimes over-covers of fabric or sheepskin, chemises, used.

Assemble Quires – 4 Bifolium

Assemble Quire – 3 Bifolium, 2 Separate Leaves

Sew Quires onto Leather Cords

Cords Embedded into Boards

Head and Tail Caps

Boards Covered with Leather

Pastedown

Clasps

Blind Stamp Leather Cover

Gold Stamping

Plaques

Chemise Cover

Videos

!   Getty Museum: !   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aDHJu9J10o

! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKBJkf2xbqI

!   USF Spec. Coll: ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ldVk6ZhFmhQ&feature=related

!   Skip to 0:43

!   Pen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1wyYh97LDk