Each vvoolulummee i ni nth teh see rsiers ioefs “opfr i“mperrims”e inrst”ro idnutrcoes- SERMONS primer | 1 primer douncee gs ean green orer ao rp ar opbrolebmleamtiact oicf o mf medeideiveavla ml manaun - Laura Light | 6 uscsrcirpiptst st oto a a w widideerr a auuddieiennccee b byy pprroovviiddiinngg a brief general introduction, followed by descriptions primer | 2 ALCHEMY of the manuscripts, study aids, and suggestions Lawrence M. Principe forr ffuurrththeer re raedaindgin. g W. e believe that these “primers“ and Laura Light will help answer in a concrete way what certain Wtypheast opfe mopalneu rsecaridp tms aocsttu ianll yt hloeo Mkeidd lliek eA agned s primer | 3 LAW Susan L’Engle ihso nwo t hneeyc efussnacrtiiloy nsedlf -feovri dtheenitr emvedni etova tlh ree aedxepre s-. and Ariane Bergeron-Foote rienced medievalist. The present primer assem - BESTSELLERS bThlees ma garnouuspcr oipft ms parneussecnritpetds itnh atht issu “rpvirviem ienr “m aanndy primer | 4 hthuen idnrfeodrms aotfi vceo ipniterso dtou cetixopnl obrye P trhoefe isdsoera R oicfh tahrde Pascale Bourgain and Laura Light LES ENLUMINURES LTD . mRoeudsie,v aoln “eb oefs ttsheell ewr.”o rAlds 'tsh le afadsicnign aatuintgh oinrittrioeds uoc n - 23 East 73 rd Street tihoen btoyp Pirco, feasdsdor ePsass ctahle Bmooursgt abina sdiec mqounessttriaotnes,: 7th Floor, Penthouse MANUSCRIPT mhoewdi wevearle “ mbeasntsueslclreirpst“s wmeardee t?h ew theox tms caodnes itdheermed? primer | 6 PRODUCTION New York, NY 10021 Tel: (212) 717 7273 tarnudly e imvepno (ritna notn, ea ncda steh)u, sh porwef elornengt idaildly icto tpaikeed? , Richard H. Rouse Fax: (212) 717 7278 dNuornien go ft thhee sMe iqdudelset iAongse as.r e Hnerc eisnstarroildy uecatsiyo tno , and Laura Light [email protected] _____________________________ saingsnwifeicr,a nbtulyt, asls ois asrhgouwesn f ohre rteh,e tchaer effiursl ti nstteerp- forthcoming titles : ptorwetartdio ann o afn tshwise dr aintav,o wlvhesic cha mreufustl sbteu duyn odfe rmstaonoud - LES ENLUMINURES LTD . MANUSCRIPT isncr tiphtes caos nmteaxtet roiaf lt ahret ivfaecryts c(oemvidpelincacete odf cpircoudmucs - 2970 North Lake Shore Drive taionnc,e tsh teh aotr agfafneicztaetdio tnh eo sfu trhveiv apla ogfe m, aaindus stcori pthtse . NEO-GOTHIC Chicago, IL 60657 PRODUCTION primer | 5 Tel: (773) 929 5986 Trehaed teer,x tasn idn mthairsg cionlalel catdiodnit iionnclsu).d eI ts ohmase b teheant Fax: (773) 528 3976 alrme oststil lf oruear d etcoaddaeys, sainlocen gL.s Mide. J .o Dtheelariss soéf c eoqinuead l [email protected] itmhep oprht rtahsaet tahree “paerrchhaapeso hloagrdyl yo fk nthoew nb oeovke”n to sdcehsocrlaibres tahnids mperothboadbolyl osgeyl.d oUmse rde faidrs tb tyo tshteumdy . LES ENLUMINURES 1, rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau Mmeadniuesvcarilp mtsa onfu mscorsipt tosf, tthheiss ea ptepxrtos aacrhe choams mnoow n 75001 Paris abneden s tiellm abprpaecaerd rebgyu lsacrhloy loanrs thine tmhaer kgerto –w binugt Tel: (33) (0)1 42 60 15 58 idti sicsi pthlien ev eorfy t hfaec ht istthoarty tohfe tyh ea rbeo cookm. mon that Fax: (33) (0)1 40 15 63 88 underlines their importance in the past and [email protected] should earn them a place in collections today. general editor Sandra Hindman LES ENLUMINURES www.lesenluminures.com a series published by www.textmanuscripts.com New York • Chicago • Paris primer | 6 primer | 6 general editor Sandra Hindman MANUSCRIPT PRODUCTION Richard H. Rouse and Laura Light LES ENLUMINURES a series published by New York • Chicago • Paris Authentic Witnesses: Manuscript Making and Models of Production numeral, the leaf (a1, a2, a3…), and the individual quires of the book were also sometimes numbered in Roman numerals, especially early in the Middle Ages, usually in the lower outer margin of the last page. How did manuscript books come into being? What are they written on, what Manuscripts were written on parchment bifolia usually of sheepskin, or of calfskin are the colors made from, how was that shiny gold put on the page? These are if large pages were needed such as those in Choir Books. Skins, whether of sheep, useful questions for any admirer of manuscripts; ones that also interest paleo - goats, or calves, were prepared by being soaked in a solution of lye to loosen the graphers and specialists in the conservation and repair of manuscripts worn from hair and the fat and flesh, and then stretched tight on a frame and scraped by use and age. What I have to say in response holds true for most of Western the parchmenter. He used a blade shaped like a crescent moon, and thus called Europe from the twelfth through the sixteenth century, in the period of production a lunellum , to remove the remaining hair and flesh from the hide. The strokes mostly in the monastic scriptorium to roughly 1230, and in the period of principally of the knife are sometimes still visible on the parchment. When the last bits of commercial urban production that extended from around 1200 on into the six - hair, fat, and flesh had been removed and the skin was dry and taut on the frame, teenth century. the parchmenter would then smooth the surface with a pumice stone. The final finishing was done by the scribes, who knew the quality needed for the texts To begin with the basics: the word “manuscript” comes from the Latin manu they were preparing to write. scriptus , a text written by hand. The fundamental building block of a manuscript book is the bifolium, a rectangular sheet of parchment or paper folded in half By the fourteenth century, Italian cartolai or parchment and paper sellers offered across the longer side. A folio – one half of a bifolium – has two sides which we ruled parchment in various sizes for purchase; but paper was seldom used for call the recto and the verso (called pages, in a printed book). Quires, or gather- monastic books until late in the Middle Ages. Imported paper was known in Italy ings, are formed when bifolia are placed one inside another, usually four or six from the twelfth century, but the first paper mill in Europe was built in 1267 at of them in northern Europe and often five in the south. Each quire has twice the Fabriano, Italy, where paper is still made today (there was an earlier paper mill number of folios and four times the number of pages as it has bifolia. The quires at Xativa near Valencia in Spain, then still under Arab rule). Mills appeared along are sewn in sequence on thongs, to form a “codex” or book. Scribes used differ- streams, which could be used to drive wheels with hammers to pound the vege - ent methods to keep the book in order while it was unbound. Catchwords (that table fiber into pulp. Paper was used for text manuscripts, but was ordinarily too is the first words of the following quire) are found at the end of quires in Western thin and flexible for manuscripts that were to be illuminated with beaten gold, manuscripts as early as c. 1000, and they were in widespread use by the twelfth such as Books of Hours or presentation copies. Paper was quite suitable, though, century. In the thirteenth century the practice began of numbering the individual for drawings in pen or brush and ink, which are often seen in manuscripts of bifolia, often with a letter of the alphabet to designate the quire and an Arabic German origin. 2 3 In the monastery the entire work of making the manuscript was often carried miniature was to be painted, the illuminator would sometimes draw a sketch as out by the scribe (no. 1). He cut and folded the parchment to the dimensions of a reminder or as an instruction from the client that here he was to draw the the page he desired. He would then prick holes down both sides of the open bi - Crucifixion or the Annunciation, with initials designating the colors, “a” for azurite folium, probably several bifolia at a time, using an awl or possibly a spiked wheel. or blue, the most expensive after “or” for gold, and so on. He would then line up his ruler on the parallel rows of pricked holes on each side of the open bifolium and rule his pages to produce the layout of the text he was As the professions, law, theology, and medicine took form in the thirteenth to copy. The works the scribe copied for the house were normally the works of century, each with their own curriculum and text books, each developed its the Church Fathers, required reading during Lent. particular vocabulary and special abbreviations for them. Of the many features that emerged, the various finding devices made necessary by the length and In the growing cities of the twelfth and later centuries, books were made com - density of legal and theological works are perhaps the most significant in the mercially by artisans who worked not for God but for their daily bread (nos. 2 history of the book. Some are things we now take for granted on the page: and 3). Commercial production was specialized, with different craftsmen doing punctuation such as the question mark, paragraph marks, the alternation of the the work of scribe, illuminator/decorator, and binder. The training of parish colors red and blue for majuscule letters to catch the eye, the systematic addition priests and the emergence of the university in the thirteenth century required of running headlines with the author or title on the left and the book and chapter an effective method of making multiple copies from a single exemplar. University number on the right (no. 2). Other devices are more ambitious: the creation of stationers had the most popular texts available in peciae (literally, “pieces”) or tables of contents and, by 1230, alphabetical subject indexes enabling the reader unbound quires, to be rented cheaply and copied one after the other.