Manuscript Guide This guide is intended as a basic introduction for anyone interested in medieval book-production with a view to working in a re-enactment context. Where possible it covers the basic techniques used from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries (i.e. late Roman book production until the final end of large-scale manuscript production a century or so after the introduction of the printing press). Any comments, criticisms, additions or questions will be welcomed please contact me at benedict_coffin@hotmail.com Basic approach This guide is intended as a very basic introduction and as such assumes minimal knowledge. Where possible I will refer to other resources, particularly books or internet sites. As there is a considerable level of jargon, I will do my best to explain technical terms when they first appear. In the main, this guide will cover book-production, though I will touch on other forms of writing. Cutting corners! Re-enactors face the battle between the constraints of real life (particularly money) and a desire for authenticity. Materials and techniques which were common or easy a millennium ago are often harder to learn or more expensive today. Though it is always an ideal to be wholly authentic, I will suggest sensible alternatives available to the modern-day scribe. 1 Penknives If you look at depictions of scribes (evangelists are frequently shown at work), they are very often shown with a pen in one hand and a knife in the other. Penknives are an essential part of any scribe s equipment. Medieval penknives have a number of useful aspects: A curving blade for ruling lines (not necessarily sharp) A sharp point for pricking holes A sharp edge for cutting quills Some Roman and Anglo-Saxon examples are folding knives one half has a short blade (presumably kept sharp) with a point, while the other half has a curving blade for ruling lines. It is probably best for re-enactors to research what was in use in each period. Modern substitutes: the Society of Scribes and Illuminators (http://www.calligraphyonline.org/) can supply a very effective but inauthentic modern penknife (with a curved edge, a sharp edge and a point). Stanley knives or craft knives can be used for sharp work such as quill-cutting (Stanley knives aren t always ideal given the width of the blades), but they are usually too sharp for ruling lines. 2 Writing Implements The word pen derives from the Latin penne, meaning feather, and the most common writing implement was indeed a pen made from a bird s flight feather, though reed pens were also known. When selecting feathers to make into quill pens, the bird s flight-feathers were favoured (they are the longest feathers). Just about any bird s feathers could be used goose and swan are the most usual due to their size, but some particularly small script may have been written using crow-feather pens, and I have managed to write with a pigeon feather. When selecting feathers you will want a feather which can be held comfortably. On any quill here are feathery bits either side of a main spine (look at one and you ll know what I mean). For right-handers, this means that, when held in a writing position, the longer feathery bits are on the right-hand side. I
regret to say that I have not been close enough to a goose or swan to establish whether the ideal writing-feathers are on the bird s right or left wing. Materials: Given the stringent penalties for swan-molesting (treason, plus likely hospitalisation) it is fortunate for the scribe that there are easier ways of getting good quill-feathers. The Society of Scribes and Illuminators (http://www.calligraphyonline.org/) sell bundles of a dozen swan feathers, which is an ample supply. Archery suppliers may be able to provide complete feathers, and gift shops often have mock quills made by cutting the end off a feather and inserting a biro a cheap way of getting perfectly good quills. Once you have your feathers, the first step in turning them into pens is to harden them. When they are first removed from a bird, the spines of feathers are relatively soft, and gradually harden. As the spine forms the pen nib, it is important that it should be as hard as possible. Leaving feathers to gather dust for six months will do the trick nicely, but if in a hurry, heat up some sand in an oven or microwave and plunge the feather in for a few seconds and let the heat harden it. Repeat until the quill is hard enough. From this point, the instructions on making a pen apply equally to quills and to reed pens. Once you have a hard spine, take the sharp bit of your penknife and, if this is a completely new quill, carefully cut off the very end as close to the tip as possible. Then turn the feather over (so that both ends are lifted up) and take a shallow horizontal slice off the top of it at least an inch from the end to form a U shape. The cut should only take off 2-3 mm a gentle cut into the quill, and a careful slicing with a sharp knife will do the trick. Follow up with two more cuts, taking scoops to create a pointed nib, so that when you hold the quill for writing the point is on the up side. The point should be no more than 2 mm wide (check before you cut too much more 2 mm is actually quite wide). Some instructions would tell you to cut a small channel in the nib at this point. I ve tried it and only succeeded in breaking my nibs. An effective work-around is to take your sharp penknife and carefully score a couple of lines in the inside of the nib so that there are little grooves running to the point. This will help the ink to flow and do the same job as the split nib (though not quite as well). I have also found it useful to clean off both sides of the nib using a fine file be gentle, but it does help to remove the worst of the loose feather layers. You now have a finished quill (or reed) pen! They are startlingly easy to make, and get easier with practice. When a nib either breaks or becomes too clogged to use, you can re-cut it higher up using exactly the same technique this is one of the advantages of swan quills, as their length gives you more opportunities to re-cut! Some feathers will leave you with a quantity of irritating feathery bits brushing against your hand. There s a simple solution cut them off with your penknife. A word of caution though it is worth leaving something left attached to the feather. A useful trick I was taught is to cut a very little of the feathery material off the spine and then fold it and insert it into the open tube of the pen so that the point of the V is sticking out. It s a fiddly job, but if you get it right you will form a little reservoir for ink and make your pen much more efficient! Quill pens in use: I have heard that a scribe should sharpen or re-cut their nib after writing each page. Having written well over fifty pages of relatively dense text on the same untouched nib, I can attest that this is unnecessary. What you must do instead is to clean the nib after use use some kitchen roll or tissue paper to wipe away the excess ink from the nib before it dries. Occasionally you may wish to re-cut the grooves in the nib; once you reach this stage where the pen doesn t seem to be working perfectly, you are getting near to cutting another nib. 3 Materials: Parchment In the medieval period, the main material onto which books were copied was parchment animal skin which has been stretched, dried and had the flesh and fur scraped from it. Pretty much any
animal skin can be used for parchment-making: cow and sheep are the most common in northern Europe, though goat is the usual alternative in Italy. Smaller animals usually produce impractically small skins for frequent use. More exotic animals have been used in other parts of the world. Pig and human skin is usually too thin for frequent use. Vellum is to parchment what veal is to meat vellum is simply the term for high quality parchment taken from young animals. Parchment is rather like high quality leather (also animal skin). However, where leather has been chemically treated (tanned) and is relatively supple, parchment has been dried and is stiff (though perfectly capable of bending and folding). Because so much material has been scraped away from parchment, it is usually quite thin (particularly when compared with 6 mm thick leather for making shoe soles). Most sheets of parchment have two visibly different sides the flesh side (the inside of the animal, relatively smooth) and the hair side (the outside, often with visible hair follicles). In the post-roman and early medieval period (500-1200), between the demise of urban bookproduction in Roman towns and the rise of medieval university-towns, the main producer/consumer of books (and therefore parchment) was the Church. As churches usually possessed substantial amounts of land and comprised communities of clergy and servants around a central church, there was a constant demand for food, including meat. It was a simple matter of recycling to turn the animal skins left over from feasting into parchment for the scriptorium. The only known price for parchment comes from an order of monks who applied to Henry II of England and received 40 to buy parchment for the simple reason that they were vegetarian and therefore didn t consume sufficient meat! Although parchment was once a by-product of ecclesiastical kitchens, it is now a rather expensive commodity. To my knowledge there is only one commercial parchment maker in the UK William Cowley Ltd of Newport Pagnell, who are relatively used to the eccentric demands of calligraphers and re-enactors. Fortunately they have a constant demand for parchment, as it is still the material on which the laws and statutes of Great Britain are recorded (a recent Parliamentary committee could find no better or more permanent way of preserving a copy of the law unless repealed or amended, statutes will remain in force forever, and so a lasting copy is needed. If kept dry and free from damp, parchment will endure, if not forever, then for several millennia, which is considerably better than digital recording or modern acid-based paper). Although likely to cost around 20 per A3 sheet, parchment is the most authentic material for writing on. If you intend to go to the trouble of producing a book, there is much to be said for going the whole hog and using the proper materials. If you are only seeking to have a go at writing or are just curious, you can always ask for some offcuts William Cowley sell assorted pieces of various sizes for around 5 per square foot. You ll probably get a range of shapes, but this is a cheap way to get a feel for the materials. Some scribes may wish to get some pumice powder to smooth the surface of their parchment, and chalk to whiten it and produce a better writing surface. I haven t usually found this necessary, and it will depend on the quality of the parchment involved and the importance of the appearance of the finished product. William Cowley Ltd, 97 Caldecote Street Newport Pagnell Bucks. MK16 0DB. 01908 610038 enquires@williamcowley.co.uk (be warned it may take some time for them to complete an order, so don t expect them to replenish your supplies at the drop of a hat)
Alternatives to parchment are a bit trickier. You can probably find high-quality paper which may resemble parchment, but it is not likely to be very cheap (though it may cost substantially less). Beware of paper which looks as though it has been stained with tea bear in mind that manuscripts will look old and musty precisely because they are at least half a millennium old (and much older in many cases) and have not always been well looked-after. When newly made, parchment is usually quite light in colour (a cream-beige) and will only darken as age, dust, use, fire, damp and other perils take their toll. I would recommend re-enactors getting some modern parchment to compare with any substitute to be sure that the substitute is the right sort of colour, thickness and texture. For this reason I would suggest buying in a shop rather than over the internet. 4 Folding, pricking and ruling Picture, if you will, a book. Any book you like a paperback, a hefty hardback or a great church Bible. What shape is it? Quite right. But have you ever stopped to wonder why modern books are almost invariably rectangular (leaving aside children s books and some atlases)? Modern paper-mills can turn out paper of any shape, so there is no obvious limit on books shape. The answer lies with the introduction of paper in the late medieval period. Originally made from linen rags rather than tree pulp, paper could be made in any shape, but customers knew perfectly well that books were rectangular, and so that was the shape they expected books to be. But why are parchment books rectangular? If you take an animal skin (cutting off the legs and head) and square it off as efficiently as possible, you will get a rectangle (look at a sheepskin and you ll see what I mean). If animal skins are rectangular, the parchment they produce will be rectangular. If you fold a rectangle in half, you will always end up with another rectangle (try it!). This is exactly the procedure used to create a book before the advent of the modern paperback (where individual pages are glued together on a central spine). The basic building block of a book is called a gathering or a quire. This is simply a little booklet comprising four, eight or sixteen pages created by taking a sheet and folding it. If folded once you get two leaves, with a total of four pages (folio), twice gives four leaves (quarto), three times gives eight leaves (octavo). Books can be categorised by the number of foldings, i.e. as a folio, a quarto or an octavo. Usually this hints at their size folios are generally the largest, while octavos (and even smaller foldings) are relatively small though actual size obviously depends on the size of the sheet to start with! The terminology of pagination can be a little confusing it may help to pick up a book as an example (turn to page 17). A leaf is one complete page, i.e. if you took a knife and cut out page 17 (please don t!), you would hold in your hand pages 17 and 18. The leaf has two sides the recto is the righthand page of a book (page 17), while the other side of it is called the verso (page 18). The first step in making a manuscript is to take a sheet of parchment (or paper, or substitute) and fold it into a booklet. Make sure that the pages are cut so that the booklet will open (leave a few millimetres uncut so that it stays together). Each quire/gathering is a building-block for a complete book! The next step is to prick and rule the pages so you know where to write. Medieval manuscripts had wide margins, with at least two centimetres of empty space on each side of the text even in small manuscripts. Though this may seem wasteful, it is authentic and makes the book much easier to read. Similarly there was invariably a generous space between lines of writing; 3/16 of an inch or 1 cm is about the narrowest. As a rule of thumb, if there isn t space to write small comments in the margins, or notes between lines, you haven t allowed enough space. Pricking simply involves making small holes in the parchment to guide your ruled lines. You can use a measuring wheel or a sharp point (a leather-working awl or braddle is ideal, the sharp point of a penknife will work, and a compass-point makes a good modern substitute) with a ruler. First mark out
the left and right margins on each page, and then rule the writing-lines. It was normal practice for Insular scribes (England, Ireland and in scriptoria influenced by this tradition) to rule each page individually after it had been folded; Continental scribes ruled across the whole sheet before folding. Before the Norman Conquest it was normal to rule lines in hard-point, i.e. pressing a blunt point or edge into the parchment to leave a line, rather than scoring and cutting with a sharp knife-blade. Over time the marks in the parchment will rise and fade. From the twelfth century, scribes began to rule in lead-point, making a visible mark with a fine graphite marker (sometimes ink was used). In the later medieval period a ruling-frame was often used to guide the lines, removing the need for separate pricking. Once the lines are ruled to mark the writing-area in your quire, you are nearly ready to begin writing. 5 Ink Paper will accept ink quite readily, as the liquid is drawn into the fibres of the material (drop some ink onto blotting paper and see what I mean). Because parchment is animal skin it is far less absorbent, and most ink will simply sit on the surface and dry on like paint. When writing on parchment, it is best to use iron gall ink, an acidic mix of oak galls, iron, water/wine/vinegar and a thickening agent (gum arabic). The acid of the ink will eat into the surface of the parchment, leaving a permanent mark. While paint can be washed off, iron gall ink will remain on parchment unless you choose to erase it, using the razor-edge of your penknife to scrape off the top layers of the parchment. Traditionally every scribe would mix up their own ink each day. This can be a fiddly job for modern scribes, and fortunately an easier solution is at hand. Iron gall ink, blended to a medieval recipe, is produced by Blotts and available through the internet (www.scribblers.co.uk the wide-neck jars are the easiest to use). Sadly they only make black ink, but this is perfectly authentic for re-enactors. Although ink in manuscripts often appears brown, this is just a symptom of the ink discolouring as it reacts with the air over time. Different batches of ink will produce slightly different colours (again, perfectly authentic). A bottle will usually last for a number of quires. Modern calligraphy inks will work on parchment, though they won t always flow easily and may take a little while to dry. It is probably wisest to follow the historical convention of using black for the body of the text, and pick out headings (called rubrics) in colours. Red was the most common colour, (hence rubric ) as it is easy to make (it just needs the iron in the iron gall ink to be rusty), followed by green (add some copper). Blue was exorbitantly expensive, as it needed ground lapis lazuli, so I would recommend keeping to a limited palette. 6 Writing desk If you are writing on parchment, you will rapidly find that ink does not flow very well if you are using a flat desk. The best angle to write at is around 30 º. This raises the challenge of creating a sloping desk, and solutions will depend on individuals tastes, space and willingness to try experimental woodwork. To my knowledge there is no depiction or other evidence for what a pre-conquest writing desk looked like, though it is clear from depictions that desks sloped at varying angles. Common sense is therefore required, particularly if you intend to travel with writing equipment. The first of my three writing-slopes is a large wooden board (about 22 wide by 12 deep) raised up 3 at the back by two triangular end-pieces ideal for large manuscripts, but definitely desk-bound. The second is a box 16 x 9 x 7 which can transport all of my writing equipment, with a lid that can be propped up on two slats to create a writing-slope.
The third is by far the simplest and easiest to transport a board 9 square and a separate frame onto which the board can sit at an angle to produce a writing slope. Because of its size it is highly portable (a considerable bonus for re-enacting). 7 Copying At last you can start writing! It was relatively unusual to write a book or document from scratch as a rule a scribe would copy from an exemplar (another book), making modifications, corrections or copying errors as necessary. It can be tricky to have an appropriate exemplar from which to copy in public. For some reason libraries are reluctant to loan out medieval manuscripts, though a considerable number are published in modern editions of the text (usually with one or two plates showing sections of the text). Facsimiles of entire manuscripts are much less common and are usually reserved for impressively decorated books. Oxford University have published facsimiles of a number of manuscripts on the internet, though it can be daunting to work through hundreds of single-page images (http://image.ox.ac.uk/). My personal preference is to do copying at home, which is free from the major hazards of reenactment damp, wind, smoke and the public and then demonstrate the principles and finished products at public events. 8 Other materials Although copying onto parchment was the major means of book production, other forms of writing were used. Stone was obviously used for inscriptions. In some areas, slate and chalk will have been used to take notes or learn to write. The most common means of taking notes was the wax tablet wooden boards hollowed out and filled with wax, into which writing can be pressed using the sharp end of a stylus (made from metal, wood or bone). Heat the wax over a flame, and you can use the flat end of the stylus to smooth out your notes. Being reusable is a considerable advantage over parchment, and there are depictions of scribes taking notes on wax tablets at public meetings. Wax tablets can often be found at re-enactors markets. 9 Useful reading and resources There are a number of books to support the modern scribe, many of which are published by the British Library. If you want to see manuscripts in the flesh, then there is no better way than to visit the BL and its permanent exhibition of manuscripts (entry is free, and it is five minutes walk from King s Cross station in London). Though you can t handle the books, you will get a very good idea of what they look like plus, the BL has a very good bookshop. They also have an excellent website look for the Digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, which includes an excellent idiot s guide to scripts from various period, with decent photograph examples http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm. Highly recommended. Books about manuscripts Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: a guide to technical terms (British Library, 1994) by Michelle P. Brown, is one of the best general introductions to the subject. The Historical Source Book for Scribes (British Library 1999) by Michelle P. Brown and Patricia Lovett is invaluable for anyone wanting to try their hand at producing a book it gives technical tips, and then guides to a wide range of historical scripts.
A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (British Library 1990) by Michelle P. Brown provides example pages for all of the significant scripts used in the period covered. It is very comprehensive and offers excellent material for anyone wishing to copy a book or imitate a script. Manuscript facsimiles The Benedictional of St. Aethelwold is a particularly lavish episcopal book written in the later tenth century. There are several facsimile editions, the most recent being by Andrew Prescott (British Library 2002). Oxford University have published facsimiles of a number of manuscripts on the internet, at http://image.ox.ac.uk/. Books on bookbinding The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding (Ashgate 1999) by J.A. Szirmai is the definitive volume about medieval bookbinding. An exhaustive survey of evidence, techniques and methods, it is without peer. The only catch is its considerable price-tag. Headbands: How to work them (Oak Knoll 1986) by Jane Greenfield and Jenny Hille provides a good introduction to headbanding. Hand Bookbinding: a manual of instruction (New York 1986) by A.A. Watson is an acceptable introduction. Better material can be found elsewhere. The British Library Guide to Bookbinding: History and Techniques (British Library 1998) by P.J.M. Marks offers a comprehensive study of bookbinding throughout the ages. The breadth of its chronological range means that it goes into limited levels of detail. A simple introduction to bookbinding can be found at http://66.82.75.68/bookbind2.html written by Robert G. Ferrel. Note that his method of simply looping the binding cords through the cover isn t really authentic, but it is very easy and particularly useful if you are binding on thick cardboard rather than wood. ******************* This article is 2005 members of 'The Vikings' Ecclesiastical team and October 25th 2005. Copies of this document must not be sold or otherwise used for commercial gain, but free use and distribution is allowed for non-profit use. All other rights reserved by the authors.