Scribes and illuminators

Scribes and Illuminators

                This book is all about codicology, following book-making from the animals, rags from which the parchment or paper would be made all the way through the planning, penning, illuminating, and binding the Books would go through before being completed, and is rich with illustrations of processes, detailed explanations, and vibrant images of medieval manuscripts, missels, and miniatures. It is divided into three main sections: Paper and parchment-makers; Ink-makers and Scribes; and Illuminators, Binders, and Booksellers.

                The book starts off with a detailed explanation and survey of parchment making, which we already covered earlier. There are, however, a few pieces of information worth noting that we have not before mentioned. The task of creating the parchment from the skins was the domain of the Percamenarius, and was a profession common to the gothic period, but probably dates to the earlier Romanesque and Carolingian periods. This would seem to be the case particularly for the Carolingian as Abbot Adelard in 822 at Corbie instituted a parchment-maker there. By the twelfth century there were lay parchment-makers at places such as Regensburg. Parchment making was considered an artisan and tradesman craft in every town. The invention of Parchment, according to Pliny, is associated with King Eumenes II in Pergamum in the second century BC during a papyrus blockade. The parchment-maker selected his skins from the abbotoir. An interesting note with parchment is that since it is made from oblong or non-uniform skins, on some manuscripts you can tell which part of the hide was used for a page, such as that covering the spine, because of certain bumps or lines that would occur on the finished thick parchment (would not be so distinct with thin parchment that had been pared down significantly). Also, if a hunted animal rather than a butchered livestock animal was used, you could sometimes notice bloodstains or vein-marks on the parchment (you would probably not see this in very important manuscripts). One aspect this book particularly emphasizes with parchment production is the time intensity of the work and the price. Soaking a hide in lie could take anywhere from three to ten days to cure it, and even longer if left in the sun to dry. Once dry, it would be scraped clean, rewashed, then scraped again till smooth, allowed to dry, and subsequently scraped a third time. The scrapings were often used to make glue (its use will be elaborated on later). Manuscripts tended to be thicker in the monastic period, and thinner following the thirteenth century.

                Sheets were rarely sold individually, usually by the dozen, and came at a significant cost. A 1298 account from the Sainte-Chappelle in Paris records a purchase of 972 dozen skins at 194 livres and 18 sous, coming out to 3 sous a skin. Also paid was the sun of 24 livres and 6 sous for scraping, 60 sous to the man selecting the skins and 10 sous to the valuer. The high cost can be somewhat offset, however, by the durability of the material. Parchemtn can last for over one thousand years in perfect condition. This is partly due to the fact that parchment, like leather, lasts longer from mild handling so as to retain its suppleness. Cheap parchment, however, does tend to curl up on the reader and demonstrate the more concave or convex features of the skin. Parchment was also ideal for book-making. Parchment could be sewn together easily, whereas papyrus would snap when folded, and crack when sewn together. Paper, then, was able to combine the utility and ease of papyrus, with the supple, flexible features of parchment.

                It is only in the thirteenth century that we find paper mills well-established in continental Europe. By the turn of the century mills were establish in Spain and Italy, France by 1340, and Germany by 1390. It would take England till the late fifteenth century to gain a solid base in paper production. Paper was also slow to gain acceptance as can be seen especially in England, wherein as late as 1480 only parchment was accepted as security for loans. That said, however, printing in the 1450s transformed the need for paper as it made literature exceedingly more available to a wider array of people. As the demand for books rose, paper became the perfect medium as it was infinitely cheaper to produce than parchment.

                Medieval paper was made from white linen-rags, and was more durable than our wood-pulp based paper. The rags were soaked, washed, and allowed to ferment four or five days, causing the rags to disintegrate in to pieces that were then cut and beaten for hours in clean running water. The resulting mush was then allowed to fester for a week, and was then beaten again until it was a waterlogged pulp. After the pulp was poured in a vat, the paper-makers would then dip a wire frame in the mix and pull it out, a film of fibers clinging to the frame. This is where watermarks would be put on the paper. The frames would often have some of the wires twisted into a design that would leave an imprint visible when the finished paper was held up to light. After the film is on the frame, the film would be emptied onto a sheet of felt, covered with another sheet, and then stacked with other such sheets to be pressed and squeezed till dry. The dried sheet was then dipped into an animal glue (from the shavings we mentioned earlier) to finish the bonding process.

                Next described is the process of preparing a manuscript for writing, also covered earlier, such as page layout, ruling, and formatting, and the writing process itself. Inks came in two primary types. 1) Carbon or charcoal ink, or lamp-black mixed with gum (the gum helped the ink adhere to the page), and 2) metal-gall ink with gum (in this case the gum thickened the ink rather than helped it adhere). As mentioned before, scribes would work from exemplars, the pecia, for writing. Exemplars were often borrowed between monasteries (why would we need to copy something already extant in our library?), and universities, specifically Paris and Bologna, had an exemplar loan service. Writing the medieval manuscript required the use of both hands; the pen in the write hand, and a knife in the left to quickly erase mistakes and hold down the springy parchment. Particularly in the gothic period scribes would also know multiple scripts.

                The last section of the book covers illumination, binding, and bookselling. Illumination particularly reveals the great planning that went into book production. As mentioned a few weeks ago, when parchment was purchased, it was done with the exact intent of its use already planned. When the scribe wrote, he would also leave specific areas blank in preparation for future decoration to be added (the job of the illuminator). In some cases, after the initial illustrations have been sketched in, there will be tiny letters in the miniatures to indicate exactly which color was to be used in that area. There were even whole books dedicated to the proper forms to be used in illuminating and painting in texts that describe and depict explicit forms allowable for use. Clearly, illumination would only be necessary for the most important books and works, most books being strictly the script.

                I am constantly amazed with how much work is dedicated to book-making in the Middle Ages, and how important or valuable books were. I take for granted how easy it is to come by books today, and greatly appreciate the intense devotion to literature demonstrated in early book-making. It is also striking to me to see such hierarchy even in book-making, and how much planning would go into the work. From start to finish, every aspect of the book was thought through, developed, and laid out before any writing ever took place. (I will be posting some pictures over the weekend that relate to this post)