Well, hello, everyone. Welcome. Fantastic to have so many people with us,
for one of our regular series, Meet the Manuscripts Events, which are a way for us to share some of our collections,
both the well-known items, and some of the less well-known items,
and for us to highlight some of the cataloguing and digitisation projects that we've got going on at the moment.
And today, as Rosie has explained, we'll be looking at some bindings, and manuscripts which have been digitised and
catalogued as part of a current project funded by the Polonsky Foundation.
And there should be a link to the project website in the materials that we sent out in advance.
Why are we focussing on bindings? First, because they're often neglected,
and I have to admit the Bodleian has been guilty of this as well.
It's revealing that when we started to digitise manuscripts, back in the 90's, we didn't routinely include the bindings at all.
When we did start to digitise bindings, we typically only showed the boards, the front and back covers,
we didn't show the view from the spine, or the top, or the bottom, or the sides of the manuscript.
And in fact, manuscripts from German speaking lands,
our current projects, is the first time that we've provided all these images of a manuscript's exterior.
Now, bindings didn't used to be digitised because they weren't considered interesting, unless they were very richly decorated.
And our second reason for looking at bindings, is to show you, and persuade you, that they are
interesting, even when they are relatively ordinary mediaeval bindings, or even later ones.
Any binding always has something to tell us about a manuscript's history and its users.
And often it has more to tell us than first meets the eye. So we're going to look in detail in this session at
three mediaeval bindings, and one later one, to get a sense of where to look for this evidence and how to interpret it.
And finally, our third reason for looking at bindings, is that it's an area where different
kinds of expertise in the library come together in a very productive way,
and it gives us the chance to so showcase the work of our conservation and collection care team.
Their experience in working with old bindings not only gives them invaluable expertise in interpreting the evidence of surviving books,
but also in how to prepare and preserve those books for future generations of readers.
And so we're going to end the session by looking at a 9th century manuscript that was recently given a 21st century binding here in the Bodleian.
But we're going to start, as I said, with a mediaeval manuscript, which you can see on the visualiser. And perhaps,
Andrew, we can just start if we, if we imagine that we didn't know anything about this manuscript at all,
we, we'd just sort of taken it out of its box, and were looking at the binding, and seeing what clues the binding gave us about,
about where the manuscript might have been. What, what would you want to draw attention to?
What features would you draw attention to for getting a rough sense of the days of the binding,
first of all, perhaps? The date is interesting and, well, what a lovely thing to look at,
if only virtually at the moment. But one of the things we can see is that its, it's a brown book.
This may seem, sort of, quite crude, but it's a brown leather covering the book here, which is telling us that it's a vegetable-tanned leather,
which is a type of leather that's really only commonly used for bookbinding from about 1450 onwards.
So I would be thinking, immediately, that this is a late mediaeval binding or later. We've got other intriguing things,
I can see two square pieces of metal on the board,
That, that we can see here, and with pins attached to that, bits of metal attached to the board, which are interesting,
and a large label. So that's telling us something about how this book was was kept closed.
So these are what's known as side pins, and
we'll come to it in a moment, I think, there should be a corresponding traces on the other board.
The other really interesting thing is the big white paper label across the middle, which is, I'm assuming,
and luckily, I've got my curatorial colleague here, is telling us what's in this book, you know?
So we've got a brown book, with bits of metal stuck to it, and some kind of label telling us what's in it, which is
indicating perhaps how the book was used. And then there's other tantalising bits,
I can see white bits towards the spine, bumps on the spine, things at the head and tail, which we might come to in a moment.
So, looking at that, you know, I don't know the weight of it, but if you were to touch the boards,
I would imagine they're solid, probably wooden boards, that you can nail or attach bits of metal to.
So we're thinking it's a, it's a sort of late mediaeval binding, probably 15th century, and we've, we've got the tanning process that you mentioned,
and then also features like, sort of, raised bands on the spine perhaps, and the sort of roundness of the spine.
Yeah. We can see just as you move that, we begin to see so on, on the spine, and at the head and the tail
there are these,
what, what was originally a contrasting colour, a pinkish lacing over the end bands, you know, a method of enhancing the board attachment.
It would have been, and this is what we often find with very old manuscripts and bindings,
what now may look slightly scuffed and perhaps shabby, would once have been bright with contrasting colours.
So in this case, a brown with, with pink trimming at the head and tail.
OK, let's let's send it over, and have a look at the backboard and see if that gives
us any any extra clues as to what might have happened to this manuscript.
So what would you, what would you like to draw people's attention to from this viewer?
Well, again, we've got these two intriguing bits of metal. So, again, nailed to the boards.
So, these are likely to be the anchor plates that would secure straps, which would then go around to the pins on the other side.
And the other very interesting thing is just, just how, sort of, scuffed and slightly more worn this board is rather than the other one,
which is, you know, telling us something about how this book has been used and more importantly, stored.
We think of books now on, on, on bookshelves vertically, vertical storage.
But we know in the Middle Ages that they tended to be stored flat. So this, I'm guessing, was stored on this board.
And then, the direction of the straps is telling us it's closing from right to left, which may give an indication of where it's from.
And then there's one other intriguing thing, towards the top or the head of the board,
it looks like there's a piece of metal embedded at the top.
Well let's, we'll open the border and have a look at that in a moment,
but maybe you could say a little bit more about the way the book closes, which you said might give us,
so it's closing onto the front, so the straps would come around closing onto these.
And then we have the label on the front board, and also they sort of wear on the back, which is telling us that the book was stored, you know, flat,
sitting on the board that we can see at the moment, with a label on the front
telling us what's in it. And that makes you think, you know, why do you need a book that tells us what's in it?
I mean, it may be common, to think of it, a paperback now with the title on the front,
but that's not always the case. We rarely see that with early books.
But this is telling us something about how it was stored and how it, possibly, was used.
Okay, let's have a look. Let's open it up and have a look. See if we can get any more clues
about this metal, metal fastening that you were mentioning at the top there.
Can we say any more about what that might have been now that
we've got the book open, do you think? Well, we can see that certainly it's left a trace on, on the leaf that's facing it.
And that's a leaf itself, which is intriguing, with all kinds of stains on it.
And then as you go further in. Oh, yes, that was a nice sort of rust mark. Quite a particular shaped rust mark, there.
Yeah, that's carrying on for several pages, actually. That's always an interesting you know, what marks are left in manuscripts.
But this is indicating that there was a large, heavy, bit of iron attached to this board, which again, makes you think, what was that used for?
It's not to close the book, so it's some, sort of, securing the book in a way.
And, you know, from these stains, it would indicate that this is a a chained book within an institutional library.
So we've, all we've got is this, sort of, nail and the marks left of the structure,
but that, that's enough for us to make a sort of informed guess about what would have been there originally.
Yes. And then, if we look at that, kind of, the book that's closing from right to left and stored with the left board uppermost,
that would indicate that it's probably from a German-speaking area, or Scandinavia, or the Netherlands, or Flanders,
because we know that books tend to closed the other way in England, France and Spain.
Italy, is slightly odd that you can have, you can have both directions. But that, you know, broadly just,
you know, without reading anything, the date of the letter or the type of the leather,
how the book closed, is giving us a sense of both the date and where it may have been.
And that's, you know, ignoring this sort of fantastic evidence in front of us here, where, you know, we can see more about the wooden boards.
Wood is a fantastic material, it's a, sort of, relatively light-weight, but sort of stiff, rigid, material.
And then we can see that that's been used to lace, we've got these three white straps which are related to the sewing structure,
so how the book is is put together. So, lovely. This leaf that you mentioned earlier, this sort of mirror writing on the board,
shows us that this would originally have been, been stuck down as a paste down to the board.
Yes. And now that's, that sort of recycling is, it's very common, isn't it,
of older manuscripts that were no longer, sort of, found useful being reused as parts of bindings.
Yes. So how's it, how's it become detached from the structure?
Well, I mean, we find this commonly within bindings, that we have not only a careful choice of materials, but also the recycling of older materials.
So, fragments from manuscripts were recycled within the binding process,
and of course these have become interesting to researchers. And so, increasingly in the 19th century, these tended to be lifted, soaked away,
and this would have happened at the Bodleian library, but without, perhaps, thinking of what the role of that paste down did,
and unfortunately, that often causes further problems to the binding.
If you upset the careful balancing within a binding structure, there's a whole chain reaction of things,
and then leading, sadly. sometimes to the boards becoming detached.
So we can, we can confirm some of your detective work,
I think, Andrew, if we just have a quick look at the, the first page of this manuscript, which actually tells us where it used to belong to.
So, if we just have a quick look
at the bottom of this page, we can see the ex libra inscription of Eberbach Abbey, which is in the Rhineland in Germany,
and this is telling us that it belonged to the personal library of the abbot, that we know was a chained library from other evidence.
So that gives a nice sort of confirmation, if you like, to what you were able to deduce just by looking at the binding.
But of course, if we haven't had that ex libris, the evidence of the binding would have been even more important in giving us
some idea of where this had been and what kind of use had been made of it.
Well, that's reassuring to know.
And what a lovely example to. Yes. We might think of this as a slightly worn and scuffed now, but I mean,
such important evidence in it, and even the evidence of this, sort of, water-staining and the use,
things that we might think of as damage are, of course, things that we want to preserve within the Bodleian.
I think, before we take the questions on this,
we're just going to have a quick look at the chain binding where the chain survives, so we can see how that would look.
So here we have a manuscript, as you can see, with the actual change still attached.
You can see it some fastened to the top board in this case, interestingly,
with the, sort of, nail and the teardrop-shape attachment, and very, sort of, ,
clearly the same, sort of, shape that we saw evidence of in the last manuscript.
But interesting, I mean, this is, this is a manuscript that's been re-backed,
so the spine has been replaced, and a new end-leaf would have been put in at that time to, to, probably to
ensure that that staple hasn't caused a rust mark, and there may be other end-leaves that are now lost.
So it's always these tantalising, but a lovely example. But again, interesting that we've got the chain on the left, or the upper, board here,
and it looks like the strap anchor plates on the left board, so closing on the right.
So, your immediate thought would be, is this from a different bit of Europe.
Is this perhaps Italian, or English, or Spanish, or?
I don't know. Could we see the other board? Can we/ Yes.
If we look at the, if we look at the back board, you can see that these would have been, I suppose, where the straps fastened to. Hmm.
Yes, so that, again, it's telling us how this was stored,
so it would have been stored like this, with the right or the lower board uppermost, and it always becomes difficult,
what's the front and what's the back when you've got these different ways of storing them. Hmm.
Yes, and this, this makes sense for me af something that I found quite odd about the manuscript when I first looks at it,
which is that it has a table of contents at the back.
And that doesn't seem like an obvious place to have a table of contents.
But if you think about it being stored in this way, then it makes it makes much more sense, that you would open it this way,
have a quick glance at what was inside, and then, you know, decide if you wanted to pursue it further.
Hmm. And again, that's interesting, isn't it, that if you think of a library book, it's all this care to to show you what's there, how you might use it.
I mean, you know, something for a range of readers rather than an individual possession.
Hmm. So can you tell me, is it English? Is it French?. Is it?
Well, funnily enough, this, this is also a German manuscript, probably. Ah.
We don't exactly know precisely where it was from,
but certainly written in Germany, and very likely from somewhere in Erfurt, one of the religious houses there.
So, I suppose it just goes to show you that the, sort of, rules don't always, sort of,
Hold fast. Yes, yes,
which, again, is interesting that you need the correlation between the physical evidence and textual evidence, and that we're grasping at these,
you know, hints and traces, and it's then how we interpret them.
But again, what a lovely example. Yeah.
So, shall we take some questions on these these first two manuscripts? Yes, please.
It's going to be quick-fire questions. So we've got lots of questions about materials.
So quick-fire. Do we know, for the first manuscript, which animal was used to make the leather?
Unfortunately, no. I mean, preparing for this,
this class, I've not been able to look at it, but I- The way- I did look at it, as closely as I could on the digitise things,
I'm guessing calfskin, because it's got quite a tight grained structure and it doesn't delaminate in the way that a sheepskin would.
I'm guessing calfskin, but without having a chance to have a good look.
And it's always quite dangerous to guess without looking.
I can tell you it's tanned leather, calfskin would be my educated guess, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.
I knew it. If you wanted to really know, you'd have to get your microscope out,
would you, and look at the, sort of, follicle patterns on skin? Yes.
But again, we're not quite sure what 15th century German calves look like.
Okay. Similar question. Do we know whether the, Do we have any way to know whether, the paste down is vellum, i.e. calfskin, or parchment of some other kind,
including, possibl,y calfskin? Again, we'd have to look closely.
It's parchment, yes,
with parchment being the broad term that describes all of these de-haired and then tensioned skins. And, still on materials, metals.
What were the chains typically made of? Iron? Well, yes, they would be iron, so wrought iron.
And we don't know, well, I can't say for these,
but what we do know is that, when the Bodleian set up its chain library, in the modern era from 1600,
it passed on its expertise on where to buy chains to Hereford Cathedral,
who were who were setting up a chained library shortly afterwards.
So yes, those would be wrought iron, probably a chain-maker somewhere in the Midlands.
But if we look at the other manuscript, we can see these copper alloy side pins.
And these are the two broad types of metal we see.
We sometimes find very grand, silver-gilt furniture on, on, on books in the 16th century, say, but these would be the common thing.
So copper alloy and a type of iron. And with the straps to close it, that we've now lost, would
they have been predominantly leather, and then with just a little metal fixing or completely?
They would have predominantly probably been letather. In fact, we'll probably be able to see the remains on the other board.
And yes, there would have been a metal fitting at the end that went over the side pin.
These are the things that often get lost. We do have a few left.
We've got a fantastic Romanesque binding, which has got leather straps, and just the traces of a textile covering on.
So often, it's interesting, you get these predominant colours and then, sometimes, a contrasting colour.
So in this case, we've got the pink lacing over the end-band, but sometimes contrasting with the straps and so on.
And I think we might have to leave a few questions for extra time,
because we've got a lot. But do we think that that paper strip that is stuck very prominently into the front was added later?
And if so, when? Any ideas? Well, that's a good question,
and we we have to, sort of, work it out based on the handwriting, which is quite difficult and imprecise,
but it's probably, it's probably a late 16th century or early 17th century edition.
But there is, if I just hold the book a bit closer,
you can probably just see at the top, there is actually an earlier mediaeval 15th century label as well,
just written directly onto leather at the top there, which which essentially says the same thing,
and telling you what the book contains.
And then, I'm just going to ask one more, and then we'll try and do some extra ones. Just in terms of the contents,
I think on that paste down, is that Latin that we saw in the first book or, someone asked if it was old English?
So these are all, these all Latin manuscripts. So I think everything that we're looking at today is Latin.
So the paste downs are from an 11th century liturgical text.
Very drastic recycling. Brilliant. Thank you. And we'll hopefully have time to answer a few extra questions in extra time, but if we can move on
that'll be fab. While we're waiting, Andrew, do you want to just mention what you've got behind you, your lovely skin. But just, I mean,
on the talk of parchment, so there's a sheepskin that has been turned into parchment within the frame that it was tensioned on.
and this now lives in the Conservation Department within the Bodleian, and was commissioned for an exhibition, 'Designing English', to show how
parchment is made, and to show the close relationship between the shape of the animal,
in this case, the sheepskin, and the finished flat parchment.
So, the next manuscript is, maybe, seems like a slightly left-field choice, Andrew, because it's, it's not a medieval binding, is it,
it's a 17th century binding. Do you want to tell us why,
explain why, we chose this manuscript? Well, we've chosen this one,
I mean, for two reasons. One, that it's got this very prominent centrepiece,
so the gold tooling in the centre of the spine, which tells us that it was bound for Archbishop Lord,
and a lot of the manuscripts in the current digitisation project came from his collection.
But also, more importantly, I think, just because mediaeval bindings are actually surprisingly rare, and most mediaeval manuscripts don't
continue to, sort of, survive in mediaeval bindings, but have been rebound.
So we've brought this out, really just as an example to say, well, this is actually what most mediaeval manuscripts look like in the Bodleian Library,
and to to say, well, you know, what we've learnt from the last example, can we use that on this?
I mean, what evidence is there on its binding? And, I don't know, Matthew, if you want to say something about the age of the manuscript?
Yes, let's. So, I suppose, to, to pick up on your your point,
even if we we, even without looking at the manuscripts inside, this is still telling us who owned it in the 17th century,
and something about its history, and we, we happened to, sort of, know a lot about Lord and his donation from other sources.
But if we didn't, this, this binding might be the only piece of evidence that would tell us that.
I'm going to turn the manuscript around because we're going to look at the, sort of, final leaves to get
At, that's where the best evidence of the earlier binding is,
but the manuscript itself is a, is a sermon collection written about 1000,.
again, from one of the German religious houses, that a lot of Lordian manuscripts came from.
This is from from Wurzburg. So what we want to do is to have a look and see if there's any evidence of earlier bindings in the manuscript itself,
if we look, sort of, past the Lordian binding. And, I think, I'm right in saying, Andrew, that it's, it's a binding that's been re-backed.
So, it's just. Yes. It's a Lordian binding with a, sort of, 19th century, I suppose,
spine. Yes, and this is often the case, that we've got,
I mean, it's, it's mind-boggling, those sort of figures, really. But if you think, the manuscript is around the year 1000,
the binding we're looking at is from the 1630s, with a repair probably from the 19th century.
I mean, already you're seeing that there are lots of gaps in the history of this, and that we're trying
to put a chronology together about what happened to the manuscript when, and binding evidence,
even when it doesn't have its original binding, or an early binding, can be really important.
Okay, so they look like they new end-leaves that were put in when it was repacked. Ooh. And a nice,
very marked piece of parchment, with tannin stains on,
so a similar thing that we saw in the last one. But, as I say, with my insider knowledge on, that looks like a very Lordian end-leaf.
We know that he was using this quite cheap sheepskin parchment for,
yes, And it's interesting to see the difference in, in colour between the cleaner side of the parchment, and then the manuscript leads.
Yes, so just, so just because we can see this staining around the edges, doesn't necessarily mean we're looking at evidence of a mediaeval binding,
it could could be an early modern binding that's left those marks.
So here we are with the manuscript itself, and this is this is the kind of thing,
I think, that gets us historians quite excited, because we don't necessarily like our books to be, sort of, clean and pristine,
Do we? We like them showing evidence of use where marks.
So what sort of marks can we see here, and how would we interpret those?
Well, I mean, how, how fascinating really to see. We've got, we can see some patches,
so this is a leaf that's clearly been repaired, both towards the far edge on the left of our screen, and then on the right towards the spine.
We've got all these interesting water-stains, which is telling you something about,
you know, perhaps, the, the times when the manuscript was of interest, times when it was perhaps less so, and something of its storage history.
And then these intriguing, sort of, stains,
darker stains, rust stains. And one, one that's really jumping out at me, I can see, rust stains on a patch
towards, towards the head here in the in the top corner. So, again, rust stains are telling us that it's iron.
So we've, we've got something, probably a stain, coming from a nail or something.
yes, we've got a hole right through it. Possibly part of the clasp system.
So how the? So that's telling us, okay. You've got a nail, okay, a nail is likely to have been put into a wooden board.
So it's telling us something about this is, you know. Actually, those are, those are not the only holes in the manuscript.
And it's a little, sort of, hard to see just on the visualiser,
but perhaps if we go in a bit closer, people will be able to see this.
There's a quite a few smaller holes as well, here for example. Ah. Ah. So what are they telling us?
Well, small round holes are always interesting. because that's telling us that these are exit holes from insects, and not just any old insects.
We always say bookworms, but these are likely to be the exit holes for common furniture beetle.
It's not interested in parchment, not interested in paper, we're only seeing these because they've been attracted to wooden boards from a binding.
So it's telling us something again about this, it must have had a wooden-boarded binding.
She's telling us something about the, sort of, status of the manuscript, kept somewhere that
was slightly damp at one point, to make it attractive to the furniture beetle,
which would, you can see again that from from the water-stains, and these exit holes as the lava has sort of been chewing its way through
and os trying to get towards the outside, and they often take wrong turns and go into the text block before emerging again.
But again, it's, it's telling us something about that six hundred years between the manuscript being written and the Lordian binding.
But also, I mean, it's interesting, those intriguing repairs, quite heavy-handed repairs,
but the rust-stain on it is telling us, okay, that that's not a modern repair, but that's a repair that must be before Lord,
so before the 17th century. So, it might look a bit scruffy, it might
it might not be appealing,
but that's important evidence, that's telling us about a campaign of repair, re-binding, at some earlier time in this manuscript's history.
So these are these tantalising evidence again.
Yes, because I was just looking at the, sort of, rough repair, you might have thought at first sight that it was an early-modern job, mightn't you
So it's interesting to to have that extra evidence of the stains, and pushing that back a couple of hundred years,
maybe, to a late mediaeval or, sort of, early 16th century campaign of repair and re-binding.
Yes. Now, should we take some questions on on this manuscript,
then, before we move on. Yes.
We've got a question about beetle holes. How, I know you shared an, shared an article, Andrew, which I'll share in the Q&A as well,
how would you differentiate furniture beetle holes from other insect damage
Could you just say? Very interesting.
There are, there are there are whole groups of people looking at them, but it's to do with the shape of the hole,
so the roundness, that's the size of the hole. There are two types of furniture beetle in Europe.
There's one that you tend to get in northern Europe, one in southern Europe, and the sort of shape of, of how the thing's being chewed,
so, although most work within, sort of, preventive conservation is looking at stopping this kind of damage happening now,
we're increasingly getting interested in the evidence of what this tells us about the earliest storage and,
you know, how collections were looked after. Thank you.
And I've got a question saying it's interesting that this text was worthy both of repair and neglect.
Could you just talk to that briefly? It has a lot of, seen the wars, in the corners.
Yes, well, I mean, it's a it's a very, very old manuscript, so, I mean, Matthew will be able to say,
but I mean, you know, it shows some signs of neglect at times, but also signs of care,
and so I presume, manuscripts as anything else,
go in and out of importance. Yes.
So, as you say, it is a pretty old manuscript, a sort of collection of sermons,
and you can see, I mean, there are, sort of, other signs of late mediaeval use in it.
So there's, it's been given a late mediaeval foliation, which you can see at the top of that leaf.
So there does seem to have been a, sort of, campaign in Wuerzburg in the, sort of, 15th or
maybe early 16th century to, to sort of catalogue and spruce up some of their books.
But it's this maybe isn't isn't a book that would have been sort of used that much when it was, sort of, repaired,
but obviously, it was, sort of, valued enough to give it a re-bind and to, sort of, fix the main problems with its,
sort of, parchment. Thank you. And then maybe two more questions, and then we better move on.
Can you very briefly say, are the Lordian bindings here kind of uniform in their style and quality?
Was it a, sort of, matching set or do they differ? Yes and no, I mean, broadly similar.
But Lord gave, I think it's four tranches of, of manuscripts to the Bodleian, over a number of years.
So they're broadly the same, but there are two different two different sizes of centrepiece,
and then within them, there are some slight differences. Interestingly, he was having a lot re-bound
fairly quickly and reasonably cheaply, so what's lovely about them is that
some of them preserved traces of mediaeval sewing, say, within the structure.
So actually, cheap and quick, sometimes preserves, preserves things that, that might not have.
And it's interesting why they were re-bound if, if a lot were coming from Germany?
Was it because it was cheaper to transport them, having taken wooden boards off, say, and then having them rebound in in London?
I don't know. But they're, they're intriguing questions that they raise.
And then lastly, for now. Are we able to use kind of scientific methods to find out more information?
So our questioner says that there's examples of DNA from saliva being recovered, so
not very CoVid-safe, and sort of analysis of leathers.
Can you say a bit more about that? Is that destructive? What would determine, is it funding that would determine whether we would do that,
or is it something else? Yes, increasingly, there are there are newer techniques and there's a very interesting one around protein analysis.
The Bodleian has got a very sensible policy of not allowing destructive testing.
So, if you have to take a sample away to test it, understandably, we don't want that to happen to our, our, our collections.
But increasingly, with non-destructive testing, analysis methods are coming on.
So, it's the sort of thing, yes, we're getting more information.
The other, the flipside of that is, just because we can do something, there has to be research question.
So, you know, again, what is it we want to answer? We know pretty well what Lord was having things bound with.
But yet there there are cases where it is important that we know.
And that's, you know, there are research questions coming out of it.
But, I think, increasingly there'll be more of this, with more precise techniques.
It's, it's more of a growth area, I think, in the study of parchments,
isn't it, Andrew, where people researchers are trying to work out, you know what, not just what sort of species of animal was used to make the parchment, but
what sort of other characteristics that the flocks might have had?
Yes. It's, it's become, it's become quite an important kind of archaeological evidence, if you like,
because it preserves, you know, the animals of a thousand years ago or more, in book form.
So there's a lot that researchers can potentially do with that. Yes.
But again, interesting, Interesting, exciting stuff, but it's, it's moving on in leaps and bounds. Brilliant.
I think we had better save some questions for the end, and move on to our new little, little tiny manuscript here.
Yes. So this is, this is obviously something very different, Andrew, isn't it?
It's not necessarily the sort of binding in wooden boards that people might associate with a mediaeval binding,
so, so what do we have here? Well, it's lovely to see it.
next to your hands there, and also to see that slight, if you can pick it up again,
so towards the middle, you can see those, those sort of stains on it, as well.
So this is something- Oh, yes. That originally would have been quite a bright white colour,
so a different type of leather. This is something that we call tawed leather.
So it's a mineral-tanned rather than a vegetable-tannage. But again, you know, it's lovely to see those, the marks of earlier readers,
you know, how they've picked it up, and how you have to slightly squeeze it to open it.
And this is, yes, there is no wooden boards here. In fact, there are no boards.
What we have is a cover, and then different types of leather.
So as I've said, this alum tawed leather that was once white. And then on the spine, there's this brown piece,
what might look like wood, that's actually a thick piece of vegetable-tanmed leather.
And then on top of that, we've got these bands of white alum tawed again, and then these sewing structures.
So this is what's known as a chain-stitch structure,
so it's where the individual choirs of folded paper in this case, are sewn with a continuous thread through the cover, through these back plates,
so the whole cover, sewing structure, and the leaves all work together.
Oh right. And that's very different, isn't it, to a wooden binding, where you
this sort of sewing of the choirs would be a separate process from the attachment of the boards.
Yes. Yes. And, and again, though, we've got a label,
this is a much later label on it. We don't have this, sort of, library label on the front of it.
The size of it, and the binding, you know, immediately makes me think this is a, this is a different type of thing.
So actually a very rare thing, there's about 140 of these types of mediaeval limp structures known.
And again, yes, a paper manuscript inside. But that's lovely as well,
we can see writing on it, it's another layer within the cover,
but writing on it, which disappears under the spine.
Yes. So we've got some more recycling going on here, haven't? But in this case- What looks like a charter.
Yes, but in this case, it disappears through the spine, under the spine, and then re-emerges on the other side.
So we've got the whole thing, is, these layers of parchment,
alum tawed skin, to make this binding, and yet again, recycled material.
And, you know, it's interesting that this is a charter only written on one side,
but the binder hasn't made any attempt to turn it so we get the blank side.
The approaches towards recycled material are perhaps different to ours.
I mean, we, I mean, they clearly didn't think that this was a problem. No.
But a lovely a, lovely, sort of, something made for the hand.
I mean, I would immediately think this is a personal binding, you know, something designed-
This clasp looks quite unusual, as well. Yes. So what we have there is a loop, well we say it looks unusual,
I'm sure it's not usual to at least half our audience,
I mean, it's a loop, an eye, metal fixing, the sort of thing that you might find as a dress fixing now,
And that's indeed the case in the Middle Ages, as well. So far, this is the only use of this type of fixing that's been recorded in the literature.
We tend to find different kind of fastenings for for mediaeval books.
But it's, again, it's, this is something that's only found so far on this book or on mediaeval dress things.
So, again, it's telling us something about, even though this was clearly a professionally produced book, you know, it's beautifully done,
it has a slightly different function,
iyt's something to open easily, to be light, to be portable, something for personal study rather than a library book.
Yes.
I think the last time we talked about it, you compared it to a sort of paperback rather than a hardback, which is one way of thinking about it, maybe.
Yes. I mean, might be a, kind of, crass analogy, but it's yes, it's,
the difference between the last or the first example that's clearly something for an institutional library,
this is something for for personal use, at least initially.
Is it worth having a look inside it? I know there are some intriguing things.
Well, I, why don't I, I will, flick through it, perhaps,
but maybe we need to take our questions while I do that, because we're, we're getting close to time, aren't we?
Well, yes. So one of the questions was about the red, the rubrication, the red text.
And so we could have a look at that, and if you could say something about the use of different coloured inks.
Did you hear me there? Yes. Sorry, my headphones have, I didn't hear that there.
Maybe Andrew did. Yes, it was the use of red. So the rubrication, the two colours within the manuscript,
if you could say something about that. Yes,
well, it's a way of, it's a way of helping guide the reader, really, through what would otherwise be a, sort of, very dense text.
So it, sort of, breaks up the text into sections. You can see there are sort of letters,
there are headings, there are sort of chapter headings, or section headings.
Then each section itself is broken up into other sections of sentences, or clauses, by red capitals.
Another section there. And it's, it's about the, sort of, guiding you through the hierarchy of the text, really,
and making a little bit easier to navigate, and slightly sort of prettier as well.
We've got a question about the chain-sewing method, is it stronger than adding the boardss separate?
No, no. I mean, I don't think we should view them as either or, or one better than the other.
It's different, slightly different, purposes. So, again, it's the thinking about how the manuscript is going to be used, and whether,
you know, if you can see evidence of that, does it tell you something about the earlier history of, of, of, of the manuscript
and it's binding? And that's often, we only get glimpses of that in, say, sort of, traces of sewing within manuscripts that have been re-bound.
So, no, not one better than the other, just slightly different, and for different purposes.
This, this isn't just, sort of, a weak form of finding, is it? Its perfectly, sort of, strong,
as you can see, from the fact that it's lasted. No, it's a beautifully considered,
I mean, there's, I think I counted, there's eleven different materials used within it,
but each chosen of the right thickness and the right kind of qualities, it's no, it's,
it's a beautifully produced thing. If we do think about strength, if we could just could we go to folios 40, 41?
There is one interesting thing in this, well, many interesting things in this manuscript, but we have the remains of.
yes, here we see, just in the centre. More recycled parchment manuscripts.
But in this case, they're little folds of parchment, and the sewing is within that fold.
And we often see this with, especially paper manuscripts,
it's as if the mediaeval binder, the new material of paper was coming in and they weren't quite sure about how it was going to survive,
so you tend to get these reinforcing sewing guards of parchment.
So that, yeah, there may have been some question in the binder's mind,
but they've produced something that's held up fantastically well for, you know, five hundred years.
Great. Well, last of all. Sorry, Rosie, you go, did you want to have another question?
Very quickly, can you just say
what the manuscript was, and what the date of the binding is, and whether we think it's contemporary with the text itself or is it a later edition,
this limp binding? Well, the manuscript is, sort of, mid-15th century, isn't it?
And we know that, partly from the watermarks on the paper. But what what's your feeling about the binding, Andrew?
The binding is almost contemporary. So it's the manuscript itself is, is more than one text.
So they were brought together as a very early stage, and there is one tantalising earlier phase that there's evidence of, which is a thread-
tackett, so to hold an individual choir of paper together.
There's just a loop of thread,
that's the remains of the loop head and tail that shows, you know, before you even get a binding, how you hold individual bits of text together.
So, but no, that, the bindings more or less contemporary.
Brilliant. We've had a question about whether medieval bookbinding techniques and tools are still relevant today,
and I think this last manuscript. That's perfect, perfect segue, right, for our last item.
Yes. So this, this very, this very plain and quite, sort of, imposing volume, which is it's pretty heavy,
you won't be able to sort of see that, But it's, it's pretty stout. Andrew, what are we looking at here?
Well, you're looking at something rather wonderful here.
So, this is something that was fairly recently conserved and re-bound by a colleague of mine called Sabina Pugh.
So this is a beautiful example of modern re-binding of a mediaeval manuscript within the Bodleian,
and, and essentially picking up on some of the things that we've been talking about today.
So, very careful choice of materials, very careful choice of techniques
around how this manuscript is used. So how can we put it into the hands of of a reader, so that it will open well, can be consulted,
that you can see as much as you possibly can from the leaves of the manuscript,
and allowing us, in some ways, to do less to the manuscript, by way of repair.
So, as you say, as it opens, the whole thing begins to move using the finest techniques,
a kind of mediaeval binding in this case, a, sort of, slightly earlier technique,
say, something from the, kind of, Romanesque period, even though the manuscript is slightly older.
And that's partly to do with, if you can see, well, you can't. But it's, we know this is a, quite a thick-
That's a tear there as well. Quite a thick, heavy, parchment, and you can see that we've got a break running alongside this copper-green pillar of the canon table.
So, Sabina thought long and hard about how would we repair this?
You can't, on both sides, it's got this beautiful early
painting, you know, we don't want to stick anything on top of it. And so, that the, that the binding itself is is constructed in such a
way that allows the book to open beautifully without needing to repair that.
So we're putting the effort into the binding to get the binding to do the work rather than the leavess.
Yeah. I'm guessing the earlier binding would have been putting quite a lot of stress on that road.
Yes. So this was another one that had been re-bound for Archbishop Lord in the 1630s, had broken down, I mean,
it's a popular manuscript, had broken down and been repaired at least once before, and had broken down again.
So this is a heavily used manuscript, in a 17th century binding that wasn't really helping it.
And it's always a difficult just decision, because ideally we want to conserve what we have, rather than replacing,
but at times, there is a need to do that. So, yes, ah, this is just lovely work.
And what we don't see, because it's, it's covered in this, what might seem like this very bright white alum tawed skin,
but in time, that will mellow with the hands of, of readers and so on,
and what you don't see underneath it is, again, the careful choice of, it's got fairly stout oak boards.
And again, in recent decades, we've had to really try and learn, again, mediaeval techniques.
We've got end-bands which are based on mediaeval structures.
And if we look at the spine, you will see, there's, if you could just turn it round the other way, Matthew,
yes, so we've got this, this run of a saddle stitch, so
it's a blue, indigo-dyed, and we dye our own linen threads here, as a way of holding the spine on to the spine-covering leather, to the end-band.
If you could just sort of, I don't know, if you could just, sort of, slightly tap the spine. It should, you won't hear this, but it's, sort of, almost like a drum.
We've got nothing actually stuck to the parchment leaves of the manuscript here,
but we're using mediaeval techniques in the way that we've got a non-adhesive structure
that's, that's holding the leather towards the spine without actually sticking it on,
which both supports the manuscript and allows it to open beautifully.
But again, that, sort of, long difficulty of finding the right kind of material is- Good quality
linen sewing-supports, good quality, quite heavy linen,
sewing threads that are used, and then, methods of attaching these to boards and then covering the with,
these are some of our practise bits,
you know, we're learning as we go along, and, and refining our techniques over the last two or three decades here at the Bodleian.
Fantastic. I'm aware that we've run over a little bit. We've got masses of questions still to come.
So I wonder, I wonder whether we should wrap up formally and say thank you to everyone and then stay on for a bit of extra time,
if that's all right with our speakers and see if we get through a few more questions?
So thank you so much, everyone, for joining us today. It's been fantastic.
We've had over 300 participants. It's amazing to connect with friends of the Bodleian all over the world.
Thank you very much, to Matthew Holford and Andrew Honey and our technical team behind the scenes.
And what we will try and do is, because we won't manage to answer all of your questions,
we will follow up with an email. Well, we'll try and answer some more of the questions by text with an email.
So don't panic if we haven't got to your question.
And we've also recorded the session and we'll share a recording as well in that email in a week or so.
And please do fill out our feedback form, only takes five minutes, and it helps us to offer these events. And have a wonderful afternoon.
So we'll finish with the official main event now, because I'm aware people probably have jobs and commitments to get to this afternoon.
But we'll stay on for a few extra questions. So if you can stick around, please do.
And I'm going to go by which are most upvoted. So there's masses of questions,
thank you, everybody,
So if you go into the Q&A and vote for the ones that you're most interested in, we'll go via that to pick which ones we answer live
and then we'll try and answer the rest in a follow up e-mail.
Brilliant. So, I'm going to go to the top of our most upvoted question.
So we're talking about the second book that we saw, and that, I think, was the chained binding that still had its chain.
Lisa asks whether if it, when it was re-bound, could the order of the boards have been switched over by the binder,
because sometimes archival bindings get re-sewn upside down.
Is that a possibility? That's a very interesting question.
Yes. And it's certainly theoretically something that could have happened, but I think it didn't in this case.
And you can, sort of, see just from looking at the the way that the final paste down has been attached,
that it sort of opens inwards slightly, and that, that suggests that this has always
been on the back board because that arrangement wouldn't make any sense on the front board.
Yes. I mean, sometimes boards, we do know, were reused, and sometimes reused from different bindings, sometimes turned around.
So some of the evidence we have for Anglo-Saxon bindings, is where they were,
the boards reused, so we have traces of lacing. I mean, with this, I mean, again, it's, I'm like everyone else,
I'm in a different part of the building and I can't get my hands on it.
But yes, you'd want to see what matches up by way of stains and holes and so on.
Yeah, I think what the wormholes, as you say, at the other evidence. So I don't think we'll be able to, to sort of show it,
but the, the holes in this current paste down do match up with the holes that you get in the final leave at the end,
so certainly they've been in there for some time, maybe not always, in that position.
But it's, I mean, it's a really good question because, yes, you should always be slightly sceptical of,
I mean, that's what's quite nice about binding evidence, and things like watermarks and so on, is that it's separate to text,
so it's something that you can use, you know, against other evidence and see, say, does it does it match up?
Does it not?
You know, I, I can't read these books, so it's useful that, you know, some of my evidence perhaps can then work with Matthew's and then between us,
we'll, we'll come up with, with, with a, a clearer understanding of it as an, as an entire object.
Thank you. And sort of linked to the question of material evidence complementing other kinds of evidence,
how, can you say bit more about which way round the book opens and how that can tell us more about where it may or may not come from.
Which is, it's just this, this sense of clasps and straps. This, the idea that if we think of a book in front of you,
you've got boards on the right and you've got boards on the left, so you either have a strap attached to one of them, and closing on the other.
So, it's, you know, we have the right to left
we think of as predominantly English, French, Spanish,
and then the, sorry. It's very hard to explain.
Maybe it was easier with the book. Right to left, so the one that Matthew's picking up now,
that's the predominant thing. So, yeah, so the strap is starting on the bottom board, if you like.
or the you might call it the bottom board, and closing on the, and the coming round and then closing here. And that way of fastening,
Andrew, you said was sort of typically German. Yes. German and Scandinavian, Dutch, low countries, areas like that.
Whereas, if you imagine that the strap, it started here and had gone round to the back, which is just what happens in the, in the other manuscript,
you can see the, sort of, clasps there, the straps sort of going round
to the back. Although this is actually a German manuscript, that's not a typically German way of doing it,
I think you said, Andrew. Yes. And sometimes we find, so we find occasionally labels, and sometimes you have a label covered with a a piece of horn,
and then that would be- So if you can turn that one, the one on the right,
Hamilton, 55, the other way up. No. Well, just like that was nice,
the way you had them. Oh, you're right. It's okay. We can. We can keep on side by side.
I mean, this is, this is why conservators are, sort of, moving away from front and back, upper and lower, because it's so confusing.
So with that, we're trying to use the terms right and left now, because, I mean, these books would have been stored like this in the middle Middle Ages.
So it's, it's hard to say what's front and back, what's up and up and down.
And your head, sort of, starts to explode. Brilliant.
And one of our very first questions, which is about the first manuscript we saw,
was can we know a little bit more about the, kind of, patterns on the bindings?
So the panel-framing, and the lattice patterns on the cover,
does that relate in any way to a window of the period? Or do we,
do we know what inspired those patterns that were used on the first manuscript that we looked at?
Yes. So that's a, quite a common pattern to late mediaeval into the 16th century, the way the sort of outer frame,
and then a central rectangle with the hatch,
well, it's sort of triangular hatching across.
I mean, books are predominantly, certainly within Europe, are predominantly rectangular-shaped things,
so how you break up a rectangle, is, is a is a problem.
So you see it both with windows and so on. But these are particularly common binding patterns, and they come in and out of fashion, like everything else.
So this is, you've got essentially blind-tooled lines and then, there are some just very
small individual tools, sometimes where those lines cross over, just to enhance the pattern.
So we see similar sort of patterns, sometimes done with different types of tools.
When I first took on an allotment, I foolishly laid out the beds in this pattern,
and I wouldn't recommend that to anyone. Amazing.
And I think with regard to the last manuscripts, so the rebound manuscript, which I've forgotten what century it comes from, I'm sorry,
And Elodie asks, why was a later mediaeval binding technique used on an earlier manuscript, rather than an earlier structure?
It's a very good question. So the manuscript itself is 9th century, I think, and re-bound in the 21st.
So what we're not trying to do, and I don't think this was implied for the question, what we're not trying to do is some sort of pastiche.
So we have a manuscript of a certain age, we want to present it as a 9th century binding.
So that's a sort of Carolingian Anglo-Saxon style of binding.
What we have there is a some Romanesque structures, and some sort of late 20th century ideas.
What we're trying to think about is, what we want the manuscript to do,
so it will depend on how it's been re-bound since, and the, sort of, shape of things like the spine.
So when the glue had been cleaned off this, when Sabina had repaired the manuscript,
it was quite a squarish block, which is similar to how we see manuscripts in the Romanesque period, which allowed a Romanesque structure,
which allows us to do certain things that would have been perhaps slightly harder if we'd have gone for an Anglo-Saxon.
So it's, it's judgement, really. But, yeah, I think if we have more knowledge about Anglo-Saxon bindings, we might think about that in the future,
but there are certain things we wanted to do with non-adhesive spine linings that the
Romanesque structure helped with this, and it being quite heavy parchment and a fairly thick,
chunky, manuscript that the structure that Sabina went for works beautifully for it.
But you'll see they're a mixture of Romanesque techniques and then some slightly later, almost Gothic techniques, in the in the end-bands.
Sorry, I've not really answered it, but it's about how we want the binding to function.
Thank you. I've got a couple of questions about preservation and material. So high-acidity contents of wooden boards and degradation of animal glue,
what challenges do those pose? Both. So.
Well, animal glue has been used from the late mediaeval and then the early modern period to line spines.
So, it's a hot glue, put onto a parchment, and hot and wet and parchment don't go well together.
So that's something we try and avoid entirely now. So that's easy.
Wooden boards is, is, is more tricky because we think, well, oak has tannins,
oak is a material that you might not use for a display case now. However, we have lots of mediaeval bindings with wooden boards.
Oak is the predominant material that was used within, say, Britain.
We know that Duke Humphry's library, you know, we've got historic bookshelves made of oak.
So oak has got a long history, even though we might not think of it now as a modern material,
but the wood allows you to do things because it is relatively lightweight and yet rigid.
If we use quarter-sawn oak, we have something that will remain flat over centuries.
It can expand and contract whilst being flat. We use oak,
it comes from a cabinet maker in Wales, so it's well-seasoned oak, and that we would always put in,
in the case we have here, we've got, I think, it's two at least, modern end-leaves of parchment plus a lined broadsheet.
No. I think we've got for four end-leaves on each end here.
So, it's something, the reuse of oak, of wooden boards,
we've only got about 100 years experience of it, but so far, we're not seeing problems with it,
and there are so many advantages for using oak,
we're continuing at the moment. But no, these are good questions. About preservation, physical and digital,
obviously, we're very grateful to the Polonsky Foundation for funding a lot of digitisation of these items,
but we've got two questions about, firstly, whether when you re-bind manuscripts, do you keep the old binding?
And if so, where, as part of the history of the book? And secondly, digitally,
are these specific observations on the material aspects of the bindings recorded in the
digitisation process as well as just being recorded because you're photographing them,
and included in the kind of data that's then made available to researchers digitally?
Yes. Well, let me let me start on the bindings, first. So, yes, the the old binding for this, has been retained, and is actually kept with the manuscripts.
So we try and keep everything together.
The process of conservation is very important, because it gives us privileged access to areas that then become covered again when it's re-bound.
So those observations are within our conservation reports, which are available to readers.
The questions around some of these observations, where, where I mean, this is all fairly new to us,
so within the cataloguing process, and producing metadata.
Matthew and I have been talking recently about how do we get more information in about binding.
So watch this space. Here, in answer to that, the second part of
the question, I think that there is some there's some information about the bindings
is presented as part of the metadata on digital Bodleian as part of the record.
But it probably won't be as, sort of, complete as the full catalogue records or as the conservation report that Andrew mentioned about.
So they will be the, sort of, digital Bodleian record
will usually give you a rough idea about the binding,
but it probably won't give you, sort of, all the information that you might get from more, more detailed descriptions, that are
unfortunately, not necessarily always online, but we're always very happy to to answer questions about those.
Brilliant. And then how much would a modern rewinding with the original techniques like this cost, and how long does it take,
and do you have any apprentices in the conservation studio learning these techniques?
We don't have apprentices as such.
There are a number of training courses within the UK and further afield for conservator. So, we do a lot of in-house training for our own staff,
plus, we host student placements from, it's about three or four different conservation courses, at the moment.
So we're, we're very, very keen to make sure that these things are shared.
Cost is a difficult one, because they're they're all slightly different. I mean, conservation is a problem-solving thing.
So, I mean, each manuscript has slightly different, different needs.
So that will depend, you know, how much conservation, how much repair it requires, as well as the rebinding.
But, yeah. Come to us through the Development Office, if you would like to support or sponsor one.
Good tip. And then maybe just time for a couple more questions, if that's okay.
So we've got one, which I believe was about the first book that we saw, the first manuscript that we saw,
which is what was the, what were the raised bands on the spine made of, and, I guess, what function do they serve?
Were they just decorative, or? I mean, we've also had questions about, more about the, how manuscripts were stored,
laying down or standing up, and whether there was a point in time when we suddenly started stacking all our books upright,
so that might be linked> Those are what's known as sewing-supports.
So those, in that case there, are alum tawed leather. I've got a book model here.
So this is one that's not being covered.
So what you have is bands of either leather or cord to which each choir is sewn, which is then laced up into the board.
And there are different ways of lacing them. So we can see the sewing supports there,
but this is sort of crucial to the structure, and here we see, you know, as it opens,
this allows the book to be flexible, so that each individual group of leaves is attached with the sewing thread to the sewing supports or bands.
So these can either be flat, or sometimes you get these, sort of, raised bumps and bands across.
So on the left here for Sabina's, re-bound, rebound thing, we have what appears more a flat spine,
we've got sewing supports again under there. You can't quite see them, but they are visible in the sort of light here.
But, but the example on the left is a late Gothic, late mediaeval on the right,
this Gothic late mediaeval, you tend to see them as these raised bands on the spine,
and the way that it's covered the leather is then shaped around that,
moulded around that, and then tied up with, with a cord to emphasise that.
So it's really an aesthetic preference isn't it, of the sort of Gothic, Gothic bindings.
I suppose this stands, that's raised up.
Yes and no. But there's also a different, there's a slightly different lacing path,
yes, it's interrelated to how they're laced into the boards,
it's, it's, it's a different channelling technique, which allows slightly different things to happen.
And I think it was also on this manuscript, is this the one with the cover
that's detached? And if so, why? Why have we allowed it to be detached?
Why haven't we fixed that, Andrew? Why, indeed?
I mean, the Bodleian is fortunate to have, depends who counts them, something like 10,000 mediaeval manuscripts.
Yes. So there is, what,
what you don't see, is that this is being usually carefully boxed, and there is normally a protective sheet between that board and the manuscript.
If we were to repair that and get the board hinging again, we would then have the question of what do we do with the metal furniture?
How do we stop that further damaging the manuscript? So sometimes it may seem counterintuitive,
but in this case, the manuscript is stable, which is, you know, our Holy Grail.
In this case, it can be safely consulted. So we don't always want to repair everything.
Yeah, and I didn't know about this, this case, but it's not always possible either, is it?
You might think it would be a sort of straightforward job to, to reattach a board to the rest of the book,
but it's not always possible without the quite extensive intervention into what is an early historic binding that we wish,
we want to avoid, if possible.
I mean, I'm working on another manuscript, and I will be again when when the lockdown's over, which has similar problems.
So detached boards, wooden boards. That's got-
That was then re-covered for Henry VIII library with, with velvet.
So there's all kinds of problems and, yes, and it becomes a balancing act.
But sometimes, it's about risk assessment,
what needs repairing. I mean, and actually, it's quite nice to to have, to show this publicly to say, well,
it may look slightly scruffy, it may look like we're not caring for it, but actually we are,
but in perhaps different ways. And the boxing and the handling of it by readers.
Perhaps means that we don't need to to re-bind this one, or repair it, or conservative in other ways.
And I think this was a very early question, so I think it was about this first manuscript.
And, I think, you said it was vegetable-tanned leather on the cover.
And Chris asks, what tanning method was used to cover leather before that,
I think you might have mentioned that was slightly later technique. Yeah. So, well, you get, so this is vegetable tanning.
So it's things like, oak bark, and it gives it this beautiful brown colour that we think of
as leather. So that's a really good way of turning an animals skin into a leather, and a leather that with withstand water,
so that's ideal for things like shoes. But on the left, this bright
white thing is an alum tawed leather. So that's using minerals ,and then things like egg yolks, and perhaps fats going into it.
So that, again, produces a really nice leather, but one that you couldn't make shoes out of, if you try to walk around in the wet.
So the alum tawed leathers are the ones that we tend to see for book bindings from our earliest periods up to about the mid-15th century,
and then vegetable-tanned leathers take over. But at each time you do get some
unusual, so there's a sort of, there's a small group of 12th century manuscripts that use vegetable-tanned letters and very early tooling.
So, yeah. Again, I've not really answered the question, but I've, it's, it's yeah, it's more complex.
But endlessly fascinating.
And I might ask one more question, because I'm aware we've now gone over by half an hour and we all might need to eat some lunch.
So, obviously, in the Bodleian, we hugely value and care for these manuscripts with all the expertise that you've discussed, Andrew, but
Angela asks, did the advent of printing impact how far older manuscripts were valued and cared for?
I guess, the context might be different in the English reformation and things like that.
Could you say a bit about whether printing affected how these items were cared for?
I'm not sure I'm entirely qualified for that.
I mean, the Bodleian, an interesting time, if you are being reformed from sort of 1598 onwards,
we are in our earlier years, sort of, collecting manuscripts that perhaps were no longer being used.
So there was, I mean, one of our entire roles has been, sort of, preserving these types of manuscripts, and their bindings.
Matthew, do you want to. Yeah, sure. I mean, so, I guess, printing content starts around 1450.
So it's, it's around for the second half of the 15th century, more or less when this manuscript was being made, actually.
So there's a long period where the, sort of, world of manuscript book-making and the world of print
book-making were occupying the same sort of space, and early printed books would have very similar bindings to this sort of manuscript, in fact.
So I think, I think, I don't think that print, sort of, necessarily led immediately, certainly, to a loss of respect for manuscripts.
And, I mean, there are two, sort of, things where you might say iy did have an effect on binding.
One is that there was suddenly a lot more material that needed for binding.
So, if you think about the massive, sort of, outputs of printing shops, doing, you know,
its editions of several hundred books at a time, and that was a lot more work for binders us to do,
and I think it's, sort of, generally felt that that led to a loss of quality in bookbinding from the, sort of, second half the 15th century onwards.
And then maybe, maybe by the time you got to the 16th century, attitudes are changing really,
and, you know, it's felt that the latest printed books are more up to date,
they're more accurate, the text is better. They're certainly cheaper.
So you, by that stage, perhaps you do start, people's, there's a sort of period, before people start caring about
manuscripts as being important historical evidence that needs to be safe for that sense, there,
there is certainly a period when manuscripts are, sort of, thrown away, and you see that a lot in Oxford.
There's this enormous quantities that we only have today as, as this sort of manuscript waste on the inside of manuscripts,
enormous quantities of fragments that were destroyed for bindings in Oxford,
and only survive as binding waste now. So, again, I've given a, sort of, slightly rambling answer there, but that I hope that covers some of it. Brilliant.
Well, thank you so much again, Matthew Holford and Andrew Honey, for that marathon journey through bindings.
I think we can tell from the questions that this is the subject that really does interest people.
And we just to reassure you, if your question hasn't been answered, we will do our best to get Andrew and Matthew to answer those,
and we'll send you a follow up email with some responses.
So, I just want to say again, thank you so much to joining us today, to our speakers, and to our technical team,
and we hope that you will keep an eye out on our upcoming events around the Polonsky Digitisation Project and other things.
There's a newsletter which you can sign up to, so that you're always kept informed about what's coming next.
So do join us again for another event very soon. Thank you very much.