Staedtler erasers help solve mystery of ultra-thin 13th Century parchment

The History Blog ^ | November 25, 2015

[Brad from Tennessee]

For a short window of about 80 years in the 13th century, small, portable bibles were produced on a large scale to satisfy the needs of the growing mendicant friar community and university students. Both groups needed bibles that were lightweight and easy to transport, a far cry from the large, thick-paged, multi-volume bibles common in scriptoria, libraries, churches and learning institutions. Between around 1220 and 1300, at least 20,000 and possibly as many as 30,000 portable bibles were produced, most of them in Paris, but also elsewhere in France, plus England, Italy and Spain. The university centers of Paris, Bologna and Oxford were the main production centers.

The first pocket bibles were pandects (single-volume bibles) and were consistently organized which made them easy to scan for a particular passage, a handy tool for the student and itinerant preacher. The script was tiny, with each letter a mere two millimeters high, and of course written painstakingly by hand. Each page was made of a tissue-thin parchment known as uterine vellum, the key to the books’ portability. Without pages a fraction of a millimeter thick, the pocket bibles of the 13th century could not have existed. . .

[skr]

Fascinating, thank you.

[4Runner]

Sort of reminds me of the Nazi “scientists” who perfected a means to convert human skin into lampshade coverings toward the end of the Third Reich.

[VanShuyten]

Hummmmm. Europeans solving problems about literacy.

Imagine that.

[Nailbiter]

bflr

[Ray76]

From the article:

Of the 220 folios from 72 pocket bibles sampled, 68% were calfskin, 26% were goat, and 6% were sheep.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don’t get your comment. Are you a vegan? from PeTA? These are animals skins we’re talking about. Fine-quality parchments for scrolls, codices and books were made from vellum for millennia.

[kalee]

Bkmk

[csvset]

Ping

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks csvset!

[null and void]

DRINK!

[Joe 6-pack]

Uterine vellum has long been used for the finest works; as the unborn calf has not been exposed to the world it has no scars, welts, or other imperfections that arise from exposure to the environment.

Similarly, the leather used to upholster the Bugatti Veyron supercar comes from cows from a select Austrian alpine herd that is pastured at an altitude that generally keeps them free of mosquitoes and other biting insects, and their pastures have no barbed wire enclosures. It all has a direct impact on the quality of the skin.

[null and void]

"Most of them were consistent within one bible, but five bibles were found to have parchment from more than one species. Researchers think that those five may be composite bibles rather than a single producer using skins from multiple animals to create one bible."

I suspect the former. Having lambskin and cow hide would have the animals unequally yoked to carry the weight of Biblical Truth.

[Bellflower]

Ping

[fishtank]

What's better, Eberhard Faber or Staedtler?