Ruling defines the position, number and spacing of the lines of text per folio (page or leaf). If you (and your patron) are feeling flush, leave nice big margins and lots of space between lines.
Ruling width medieval manuscripts skin#
You may need more than one skin for each gathering of sheets. 48r (top) and a 12th-century Gospel-book from St Augustine's, Canterbury, Royal MS 1 B XI, f. Larger flaws can be stitched: examples from the Sherborne Cartulary, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, Add MS 46487, f. Dry the stretched skin in a warm place.įly-bites received while the animal lived grow when the skin is stretched and dried.Stitch fly-bites or tears with strips of parchment.Stretch skin on a frame and scrape with a curved blade to get rid of all the flesh.Remove hair by soaking the skin in lime for a few days and rubbing over a wooden stump.For high-quality pages, select an unblemished skin (skins are a consequence of meat production, as much in the Middle Ages as today).Source an animal, such as a cow, sheep or goat.You may choose to outsource parchment but, just for the sake of it, here's the process: The craft flourished for over 1,000 years and dominates the material foundation of Western literary culture.Ī page which bears the scars of vigorous scraping, which have become ingrained with dirt over the years: from a Bible, Central France (Tours), 1st half of the 9th century, Harley MS 2805, f. What follows is a general, Wiki-How-style overview of how a medieval manuscript would have been fashioned. Discern, in your fountain pen, the memory of the hollow feather. Manuscript.Tonight, when you pick up your book, observe the legacy of sewn gatherings in the fixings of the pages. Bernard Quaritch (London) purchased the manuscript and sold it to Robert Garrett in 1928. There is also a handwritten description of the manuscript titled "Poème des Machabées." The Brölemann collection was sold at Sotheby's (London) by his great-grand-daughter Madame Étienne Mallet (b. Brölemann), on which there are handwritten shelfmarks ("B61" in ink and "C3" in pencil). Affixed to the front pastedown is Brölemann's bookplate (Ex Libris A. The earliest known owner of the manuscript is Henri-Auguste Brölemann (1775-1854) of Lyon, a French commercial broker and manuscript collector.De Ricci suggested that the binding was ca. The binding is probably French, dating from the second quarter of the 19th century. Gold-tooled blue calf with marbled end papers and five raised bands.Origin: Copied and illuminated in northwest France for a lay patron in the last quarter of the 13th century (probably the 1290s).Illustrations include thirteen square to rectangular miniatures of approximately columnar width within frames (fols.
125, illustrating three of the four texts Garin de Montglane, which was probably not part of the manuscript originally, is not illustrated. There are fifteen miniatures in Garrett MS.
Miniatures: Like the text, the miniatures are out of order.Decoration: Two 2-line penwork initials in alternately blue and red with penwork of the opposite color and 7- to 8-line initials in champide decoration.Layout: 2 columns of 42-43 lines each frame-ruled in lead point written below the top line.The folios are singletons and generally bound out of order. ii (paper) + 71 (the last folio is blank) + ii (paper). This manuscript was incorrectly identified by De Ricci and others as containing only "La chevalier de Judas Macchabée." Cf.Probably the original sequence of texts was "Le chevalier au lion" (Yvain), "Le chevalier de la charrette" (Lancelot), and "La chevalier de Judas Macchabée." Cf. Texts are all incomplete and bound out of order.