1 00:00:09,620 --> 00:00:14,000 Hello, my name is Alice Evans, and I'm an assistant book conservator at the Bodleian Library. 2 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,930 And I'm speaking to you from the Weston Library in Oxford, in the UK. 3 00:00:17,930 --> 00:00:26,030 So that brings me to introducing today's talk titled Textiles and test: a collaborative approach to conserving textile covered manuscripts. 4 00:00:26,030 --> 00:00:32,780 And our speakers are Jane Eagan and Maria Hayward. Today we are spread across three locations, so I'm at the Bodleian Library. 5 00:00:32,780 --> 00:00:40,030 Jane is at Queen's College Library, also in Oxford, along with our colleague Andrew Honey, who is assisting with the visualiser during the talks. 6 00:00:40,030 --> 00:00:48,080 And Maria is in Handover. Jane Eagan is an accredited book conservator and head of conservation at the Oxford Conservation Consortium, 7 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:52,490 providing conservation and collection care to the 16 colleges of Oxford University. 8 00:00:52,490 --> 00:00:55,730 Jane's main areas of interest in research are the history of the book, 9 00:00:55,730 --> 00:01:00,800 the description of historic bindings and the history and manufacture of paper. Throughout her work, 10 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:07,060 Jane has been able to explore textiles found in and around bindings, that she will share today. 11 00:01:07,060 --> 00:01:13,420 Maria Hayward is an accredited textile conservator and professor of early and modern history at the University of Southampton, 12 00:01:13,420 --> 00:01:19,530 with a particular interest in textiles and clothing, especially in the context of the Tudor and Stuart courts. 13 00:01:19,530 --> 00:01:22,350 Plus, Maria's research focuses on textiles and clothes. 14 00:01:22,350 --> 00:01:27,840 The practical conservation work has included collaboration with book conservators on a number of textile bindings, 15 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:36,260 such as the project she and Jane are talking about today and also recently with members of my own team at the Bodleian Library. 16 00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:43,490 Between 2002 and 2012, Jane and Maria worked together on several manuscripts from the Queen's College Library at the University of Oxford, 17 00:01:43,490 --> 00:01:50,960 which are still in their original velvet Henrician bindings. This work came to a wonderful opportunity to bring together the specialist knowledge from the 18 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:55,370 fields of book and textile conservation in order to repair these bindings collaboratively, 19 00:01:55,370 --> 00:02:01,070 as well as allowing them to explore the historical context of the textiles and binding techniques used. 20 00:02:01,070 --> 00:02:04,700 And it's this project that we've asked them to speak about and share with you today. 21 00:02:04,700 --> 00:02:11,930 So thank you both for agreeing to speak and be part of these series. And I will pass it over to Maria to start things off. 22 00:02:11,930 --> 00:02:20,360 Thank you, Alice, for that lovely introduction and for the invitation to Jane and myself to speak to you today, 23 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:26,000 Hopefully you should be able to see our first slide. 24 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,840 And so here we have two images of Henry the Eighth, 25 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:38,900 The portrait is probably this image that is more familiar to people showing Henry in his full Tudor magnificence. 26 00:02:38,900 --> 00:02:44,120 However, in comparison, the smaller image is one that may be less familiar. 27 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:50,240 This is from Henry's own psalter. And it shows him sitting reading. 28 00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:54,950 Now, Henry isn't the first English monarch to be associated with books. 29 00:02:54,950 --> 00:03:03,650 For instance, if we look at Edward the fourth, he was a patron of Caxton and a major collector of early printed books in particular. 30 00:03:03,650 --> 00:03:11,000 But if we think about Henry the eighth, he was a published author, a keen reader and one reader who annotated his books. 31 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,270 So you know exactly what his response was to what he was reading. 32 00:03:14,270 --> 00:03:23,690 And most importantly, he was very well aware of the political significance of books and of print. In the 1530's the king's great matter, 33 00:03:23,690 --> 00:03:27,800 promoted a search for information at the English court, 34 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:35,600 in particular information that would support the king's bid for a divorce and the annulment for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, 35 00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:40,880 and as a consequence, he actively acquired books at this point. 36 00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:47,660 In addition, as a consequence of the dissolution of the monasteries, which took place during the mid-to-late 1530's, 37 00:03:47,660 --> 00:03:53,120 he acquired considerably more books as the monastic libraries were emptied. 38 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:56,750 The key items were collected and brought back for the king, 39 00:03:56,750 --> 00:04:02,630 and it's in the context of these acquisitions of monastic books that Jane and I are speaking to you today. 40 00:04:02,630 --> 00:04:12,050 And now I'd like to hand over to Jane. Excellent. 41 00:04:12,050 --> 00:04:24,180 Thank you, Maria, and thank you Alice. It's a pleasure to be speaking to you today from the Queen's College, part of the University of Oxford. 42 00:04:24,180 --> 00:04:29,310 There we go. The college was founded in 1341 and is, as Alice said, 43 00:04:29,310 --> 00:04:38,160 is one of the 16 colleges with historic library and archive collections that is cared for by the team at the Oxford Conservation Consortium. 44 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:48,240 Next slide. Amongst its 60 medieval manuscripts, Queen's College has seven covered in red or black velvet, 45 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:53,430 thought to have come from one of the libraries of Henry the eighth, as Maria has told us. 46 00:04:53,430 --> 00:05:03,060 I'm showing here a list of the seven with the colour of the velvet, the contents, provenance and current manuscript number. 47 00:05:03,060 --> 00:05:11,810 Next please. The link to the Royal Library has been made on the basis of physical similarities to books known to have been there, 48 00:05:11,810 --> 00:05:20,000 and evidence such as the short title inscribed on the first page of the manuscript and the manuscript fore-edge titling piece where it survives, 49 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:26,060 which you can see, both of which you can see on the slide. I'm showing manuscript 323 with the 50 00:05:26,060 --> 00:05:32,270 short title on folio one in the characteristic humanist script at the Upper Right. 51 00:05:32,270 --> 00:05:42,360 And a detail of the fragmentary manuscript fore-edge short title, which survives on this manuscript. 52 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:51,450 The seven Queen's books are part of a very small corpus of 24 manuscripts still in velvet Henrician coverings in UK institutions. 53 00:05:51,450 --> 00:05:58,260 The Queen's group is significant as it is over a quarter of the total group of 24. Of the larger group, 54 00:05:58,260 --> 00:06:01,050 which have come down to us with velvet bindings, 55 00:06:01,050 --> 00:06:08,250 some have been repaired and some of these repairs we may see as more suitable and successful than others. 56 00:06:08,250 --> 00:06:15,180 It is evident looking at the group as a whole that approaches to the handling of the different materials of construction, 57 00:06:15,180 --> 00:06:24,930 particularly the textile component, have varied. Only one of the seven Queen's manuscripts had been treated before the project we're describing today, 58 00:06:24,930 --> 00:06:31,560 most likely in the 1980s. I'm showing on this slide one of the red velvet bindings and its opening initial. 59 00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:39,650 For comparison with the previous slide. Yes. 60 00:06:39,650 --> 00:06:44,660 Textile bindings are relatively rare and pose a challenge for the book conservator. 61 00:06:44,660 --> 00:06:50,850 We are not very used to dealing with fragile historic textiles used as covering materials. 62 00:06:50,850 --> 00:06:55,400 The project at Queen's, funded by the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, 63 00:06:55,400 --> 00:07:03,170 gave me the opportunity to work with a textile conservator and historian and for us to share techniques, knowledge and skills. 64 00:07:03,170 --> 00:07:11,800 I hope you can see on the slide how textiles present different problems when damaged compared to a leather covering. 65 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:22,650 Next. Between 2002 and 2012, Maria Hayward and I undertook the conservation of six of Queen's Henrician manuscripts, 66 00:07:22,650 --> 00:07:31,080 that ten years period feels like quite a long time ago. And for us both, the work had to be scheduled around other activities and commitments. 67 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:35,430 The project carried out together led to opportunities for further collaborative conservation 68 00:07:35,430 --> 00:07:40,920 work and raised interesting questions about the material evidence of the Queen's bindings, 69 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:46,960 both of which we'll touch on later. Next. 70 00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:51,580 The Queen's manuscripts were in a variety of condition states. 71 00:07:51,580 --> 00:08:00,280 Manuscript 323. The glossed Luke from Reading abbey was the most damaged of the six manuscripts treated and the first manuscript we worked on. 72 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:04,470 So I'll go into some detail about that treatment. 73 00:08:04,470 --> 00:08:11,400 It is a 12th century parchment manuscript in a 16th century inboard binding covered in black velvet. 74 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:17,850 The textbook was water damaged and where the leaves are blocked together, they have been torn when the book was used. 75 00:08:17,850 --> 00:08:28,950 Both wooden boards were virtually detached and connected to the textblock only by the sewing thread still in the fold of the endleaf bifolium. 76 00:08:28,950 --> 00:08:38,500 Next please. The tanned sewing supports had become inflexible and had broken, resulting in losses. 77 00:08:38,500 --> 00:08:48,580 The principal problems for me to address were structural instability due to mechanical damage, board detachment and blocking of the leaves through water damage. 78 00:08:48,580 --> 00:08:53,290 All of this made for a very unstable object, which was difficult to use. 79 00:08:53,290 --> 00:08:58,680 While these problems are alarming, they do arise in book conservation. 80 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:10,000 Next please. When considering options for the treatment of Manuscript 323, 81 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:15,070 one option would have been to dismantle and resew the book. 82 00:09:15,070 --> 00:09:16,990 But this was a last resort. 83 00:09:16,990 --> 00:09:25,090 In the end, I resewed the book in situ, that is without removing the previous sewing and sewing supports. To reattach the boards, 84 00:09:25,090 --> 00:09:32,750 new linen braids were placed over the tanned supports and secured by the new sewing threads, which you can see at the top. 85 00:09:32,750 --> 00:09:38,040 The braids extended onto the outer face of both boards where they were adhered. 86 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:43,170 The resewing in situ was possible as the manuscript was relatively small and thin, 87 00:09:43,170 --> 00:09:51,260 the sewing was very loose and there was no chance of the repair materials altering the physical properties of the binding. 88 00:09:51,260 --> 00:10:01,500 Importantly, this consolidated textblock, supported the broken stiff sewing supports while keeping the 16th century sewing intact. 89 00:10:01,500 --> 00:10:10,010 The block corners were separated mechanically, using isopropanol where necessary, then reattached in place. 90 00:10:10,010 --> 00:10:15,080 The remaining fragment of tail endband was secured in place with thread hitches, 91 00:10:15,080 --> 00:10:21,890 and the unravelled threads from the headband were wound around a new core of linen cord to prevent loss. 92 00:10:21,890 --> 00:10:30,950 A slotted linen spine lining was pasted to the spine and extended onto the outer face of the boards to aid reattachment. 93 00:10:30,950 --> 00:10:36,230 The treatment stabilised the manuscript without major disturbance of the existing structure. 94 00:10:36,230 --> 00:10:43,490 Repairs were reversible and could be removed if necessary. Next please. 95 00:10:43,490 --> 00:10:53,230 However, a large loss of spine covering with fraying and curling edges was very vulnerable, and the repair materials were visible on the spine. 96 00:10:53,230 --> 00:11:02,560 The next phase of the treatment was to stabilise the textile covering, and you will hear more about that from Maria. 97 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:09,520 Next please. Treatments of the other manuscripts followed, and it became obvious that Manuscript 98 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:15,580 323 was different to the others, which retained earlier binding structures and materials. 99 00:11:15,580 --> 00:11:20,480 I'm showing here Manuscript 313 with its medieval sewing structure and Romanesque 100 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:27,800 lacing through channels in the board edge. A very different structure to manuscript 323. 101 00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:38,220 While working on 323, there were signs of an earlier medieval binding, such as redundant sewing holes on the spine, 102 00:11:38,220 --> 00:11:40,200 thread impressions within the quires, 103 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:48,060 including from the structural endband, turn-in impressions and stains which did not match the velvet covering and its turn-in. 104 00:11:48,060 --> 00:11:53,910 The current binding of Manuscript 323 with its thin, doubled sewing thread, 105 00:11:53,910 --> 00:11:59,820 use of tanned leather for supports, endband cores and fore-edge clasps straps, 106 00:11:59,820 --> 00:12:05,070 and the blue and pink endband work for the front crossover stitch appeared to be later. 107 00:12:05,070 --> 00:12:12,090 These materials and structure pointed to the removal of an earlier medieval binding and creation of a new one, 108 00:12:12,090 --> 00:12:19,900 most likely at the time of recovering in velvet and possibly due to the poor condition of the manuscript. 109 00:12:19,900 --> 00:12:27,920 Next. As work progressed on the other manuscripts, I began to see more of how the recovering for Henry 110 00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:32,090 the Eighth had been done. Whilst the sewing and boards were in good condition. 111 00:12:32,090 --> 00:12:38,870 These seem to have been left intact and the new covering textiles simply pasted onto a binding stripped of its original 112 00:12:38,870 --> 00:12:47,340 covering, metal furniture and endbands. Where it was possible to see under the current paste-downs, traces of parchment, 113 00:12:47,340 --> 00:12:56,330 alum tawed skin or tanned leather, plus paste layers could be seen, evidence of original materials which were removed or covered up. 114 00:12:56,330 --> 00:13:04,760 In this slide, you can see the concealed remains of the earlier binding materials and the lacing of a structural endband core left in place 115 00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:10,190 but covered by the velvet turn-in, and that's on the upper right of the slide. 116 00:13:10,190 --> 00:13:17,120 The lower right image shows the endband core lacing of manuscript 302 alongside the 16th century blue and 117 00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:26,810 pink replacement endband found in six of seven Queen's manuscripts and others in a larger group of twenty four. 118 00:13:26,810 --> 00:13:33,620 Next, please. I could go on at some length describing how the original binding elements were 119 00:13:33,620 --> 00:13:38,360 removed and how this was cleverly concealed and the bindings made to work. 120 00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:42,830 Let's just say the binders were creative and covered their tracks by discarding 121 00:13:42,830 --> 00:13:51,070 concealing and making good. I'm showing here manuscript 313 with the medieval sewing, which you saw earlier. 122 00:13:51,070 --> 00:13:59,830 Parchment pastedown on the left board was once the second leave of a bifolio sewn to the textbook. The first leave has been removed, 123 00:13:59,830 --> 00:14:05,050 and the second leave turned over and pasted onto the board with the spinefold intact. 124 00:14:05,050 --> 00:14:16,770 The detail on the right shows a small piece of the now missing conjointly or original pastedown, I believe. 125 00:14:16,770 --> 00:14:19,350 Since the end of this project, I have been measuring, 126 00:14:19,350 --> 00:14:26,730 recording and comparing the binding features of the larger group of 24 manuscripts looking at covering techniques, 127 00:14:26,730 --> 00:14:36,630 removal of medieval binding materials and noting the manuscript size and textile colour and their relationship to the choice of metal furniture. 128 00:14:36,630 --> 00:14:45,100 Examination of the recovering for Henry the Eighth shows some care taken, but it was, for the most part, very hasty work. 129 00:14:45,100 --> 00:14:53,980 It's clear that the refashioning of the bindings was carried out quickly and that certain features, board squares, blue and pink endbands, 130 00:14:53,980 --> 00:15:00,010 the choice of two styles of gilt metal boss, edge and corner pieces, plus 131 00:15:00,010 --> 00:15:08,510 luxurious looking velvet coverings were used to create a suitably impressive and aesthetically unified library for the king. 132 00:15:08,510 --> 00:15:12,220 The underlying structure, however, tells a different story. 133 00:15:12,220 --> 00:15:19,730 The binders left their mark on the manuscript through their techniques and the materials and conventions of that time. 134 00:15:19,730 --> 00:15:27,090 I'll hand over to Maria now. Thank you, Jane. 135 00:15:27,090 --> 00:15:33,570 And next slide, please. So as Jane has mentioned, 136 00:15:33,570 --> 00:15:43,150 we were working with a combination of the objects that we had before us and the surviving documentation that remains of the Royal Collection. 137 00:15:43,150 --> 00:15:51,510 So the inventory that was taken as the Palace of Whitehall and 1542 provides this with two lists of books. 138 00:15:51,510 --> 00:15:57,870 Now these are alphabetical by title, and they also have a numerical system incorporated within them. 139 00:15:57,870 --> 00:16:02,160 And James Cawley, who's done a huge amount of work on Henry the eighth Library, 140 00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:11,610 identified the significance of this list and how to map it onto the surviving books within the Oxford Collection and elsewhere. 141 00:16:11,610 --> 00:16:18,390 Now, while the list is very useful in terms of titles and has been used to be able to identify the books, 142 00:16:18,390 --> 00:16:25,530 it is significant what they don't include. And one of the things that they failed to mention is anything to do with the bindings. 143 00:16:25,530 --> 00:16:30,720 So in that sense, it's only when you have the objects in front of you that you can tell that they chose to 144 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:38,100 create this decorative scheme of just covering some of them in red and some of them in black. 145 00:16:38,100 --> 00:16:47,160 In addition, as Jane has mentioned, they have the decorative book furniture and also a little label was placed on the front, 146 00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:53,730 which included a listing of what was within the book, and it was often etched with a green ribbon. 147 00:16:53,730 --> 00:17:03,930 So in that sense, the study of the object greatly enhances our knowledge beyond what we would get if we purely looked at the documents alone. 148 00:17:03,930 --> 00:17:15,090 However, elsewhere in Henry's inventory, such as the list of books that you can see on the right in this slide and we are given information about the bindings. 149 00:17:15,090 --> 00:17:23,820 And so in this case, much shorter in terms of what the books are about, in fact, no mention of what books are about, just a number. 150 00:17:23,820 --> 00:17:29,700 But it does tell us that they were covered in purple velvet garnished with silver and gilt, 151 00:17:29,700 --> 00:17:36,420 and another two books that were garnished, covered with black velvet and garnished with silver gilt. 152 00:17:36,420 --> 00:17:46,320 So in that sense, it shows us also that the clarks recording the information kept different information in relation to different sets of books. 153 00:17:46,320 --> 00:17:51,720 And ultimately, what's most important is when you can combine the objects with the inventories, 154 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:58,560 you get the the greatest amount of detail and the most insights into how the royal libraries worked. 155 00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:05,540 Next slide, please. As Jane was mentioning, the binders, 156 00:18:05,540 --> 00:18:15,020 or rather the individuals who removed the previous bindings and put these textiles onto these books clearly worked at speed. 157 00:18:15,020 --> 00:18:21,290 And so in that sense, what was important was the overall visual impression that these books created, 158 00:18:21,290 --> 00:18:27,830 rather than something that really bear close scrutiny for really high quality work. 159 00:18:27,830 --> 00:18:38,030 So if you look closely at the fabric and you can see that they haven't taken a great amount of care to align the weave. Equally, 160 00:18:38,030 --> 00:18:46,970 you can also see that where the fabric has been turned in and adhered to the boards, that these edges aren't particularly neat. 161 00:18:46,970 --> 00:18:54,050 One final thing that you can tell on some of the bindings is which direction the fabric was used in. 162 00:18:54,050 --> 00:18:59,660 And you would ideally expect that they would have it so that the warp, the main threads running 163 00:18:59,660 --> 00:19:04,250 from the top to the bottom of the textile, would be going from the top to the bottom of the book. 164 00:19:04,250 --> 00:19:10,670 And indeed, that's what you see on a number of the boards, but not in all cases, which suggests that for some items, 165 00:19:10,670 --> 00:19:20,270 they used to scrap a fabric in the way that it fitted best onto the book, rather than necessarily taking the weave into account. 166 00:19:20,270 --> 00:19:23,720 And of course, they didn't necessarily need to worry that much about the direction, 167 00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:31,920 because of course, the textile was supported by the wooden boards that it was adhered to. 168 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:41,090 We can also learn some other things about the book, the bindings, and this was one of the main aspects of the project, was documentation. 169 00:19:41,090 --> 00:19:48,440 So in that sense, we looked at examples which should be investigated, what fibres have been used. 170 00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:55,400 And in that sense, the warp and the weft were linen, but the supplementary pile warp was wool. 171 00:19:55,400 --> 00:20:01,220 So in that sense, we have a pile fabric and we have it with cut single height pile. 172 00:20:01,220 --> 00:20:08,630 But it isn't the expensive silk velvets that we are finding in other contexts within the Royal Collection. 173 00:20:08,630 --> 00:20:13,010 So in addition to discovering that these bindings were applied quite quickly, 174 00:20:13,010 --> 00:20:20,300 we can also see that they were applied for visual effect while keeping costs down. 175 00:20:20,300 --> 00:20:26,540 We had some dye analysis done on the warp, the pile rather, from both bindings. 176 00:20:26,540 --> 00:20:35,640 So for the black, we found that these were a tannin based dye, possibly gall oak or alder black applied with an iron mordant. 177 00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:43,440 And where is the red was another dye. Next slide, please. 178 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:52,230 As we went into the investigation of the dye analysis and fibre identification, 179 00:20:52,230 --> 00:20:56,670 it meant that, and this actually is quite a good example, if you look at the binding on 180 00:20:56,670 --> 00:21:03,180 the right, you can see how the binder didn't align the weave that carefully, 181 00:21:03,180 --> 00:21:11,660 in that sense, you can see that there was sort of some quite pronounced lines on the binding and they are not straight. 182 00:21:11,660 --> 00:21:20,910 And in that sense, clearly that was not an important consideration. Speed was more important and the little sample on the right. 183 00:21:20,910 --> 00:21:33,270 This is a sample of the pile from 317, and it shows that again, the pile wasn't necessarily dyed that evenly or effectively. 184 00:21:33,270 --> 00:21:37,750 Next slide, please. 185 00:21:37,750 --> 00:21:48,620 If we concentrate on this black binding in a little more detail, we can also see the sorts of condition issues that the textiles posed. 186 00:21:48,620 --> 00:21:53,040 And so Jane has run through various of the problems that she encountered. 187 00:21:53,040 --> 00:22:00,190 And for me, the challenges were related very much to the types, the nature of the materials, 188 00:22:00,190 --> 00:22:06,250 but also the way in which the textile have been, the textile interacts with with the book. 189 00:22:06,250 --> 00:22:15,850 And so in the case of the black bindings, we found that there was more pile loss than there was on the red bindings. 190 00:22:15,850 --> 00:22:24,490 And this is probably related to the black dye that was used with the combination of the tannin based dyes and the iron 191 00:22:24,490 --> 00:22:36,130 mordants having a damaging effect on the wool fibres, making them brittle and ultimately resulting in loss of pile so revealing the ground weave. 192 00:22:36,130 --> 00:22:43,210 We also have examples of colour change and colour loss on both the black and the red bindings. 193 00:22:43,210 --> 00:22:50,800 And as this example shows, we can see that we actually have areas of loss of the textile in the areas 194 00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:56,350 of the bindings that would have been handled the most, either when the book was being read or equally, 195 00:22:56,350 --> 00:23:06,040 if the book was being retrieved from storage, whether that was off the shelf or if it was from within a box. 196 00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:12,040 So next slide, please. As Jane mentioned, 197 00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:22,870 we had a few at the outset that we needed to devise a treatment that would work for a set of books that would be undertaken over a period of time. 198 00:23:22,870 --> 00:23:35,800 And so we decided that it made sense to dye a range of materials at the outset of the project that would work for both the red and the black bindings. 199 00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:48,340 And so we chose a range of fabrics, in particular the range of cotton support fabrics of different weights and weaves along with 200 00:23:48,340 --> 00:23:54,940 a range of silk crepeline which was dyed again in a range of colours. 201 00:23:54,940 --> 00:23:59,680 The idea being that because of the way in which the colours are degraded, 202 00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:10,390 it meant that we could then or I could match in the patches to suit the particular colour in a particular area on the binding. 203 00:24:10,390 --> 00:24:16,990 And that overlays could be used to influence how the patches looked. 204 00:24:16,990 --> 00:24:20,950 So in terms of both to make the colour match a little bit more subtle, 205 00:24:20,950 --> 00:24:30,130 but also to give a suggestion of it was closer to the original woven appearance of the textile. 206 00:24:30,130 --> 00:24:40,750 Next slide, please. So this is here to give you a sense of how the work was undertaken. 207 00:24:40,750 --> 00:24:51,340 And for many of the areas I used support patches that were made up of several layers of textile. In particular the reason 208 00:24:51,340 --> 00:25:02,650 for several layers was partly in order to create something that had enough substance to allow it to support the fabric, 209 00:25:02,650 --> 00:25:09,640 but also to function as a sort of a surrogate for the binding, especially in the spine area. 210 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:18,400 And equally, the combination of layers allowed me to get a more subtle colour match and also to 211 00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:25,420 suggest, to create a suggestion of the original sort of structure of the textile. 212 00:25:25,420 --> 00:25:28,570 And as this slide indicates, 213 00:25:28,570 --> 00:25:39,130 you can see that one of the challenges was working around the book furniture and also being able to insert the patches under 214 00:25:39,130 --> 00:25:47,770 the existing binding and then being able to support what remained of the fragmentary binding on the spine. 215 00:25:47,770 --> 00:25:55,000 Next slide, please. Here you can see the same book, but with the treatment further progressed. 216 00:25:55,000 --> 00:26:04,270 And this gives you a sense of how it was possible to support the fragmentary remains from the spine of the book onto the support patch. 217 00:26:04,270 --> 00:26:12,160 As you can see, very careful pinning was important in terms of keeping the patch aligned, 218 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:21,310 keeping it in position, and it required regular adjustment to just sort of check the tension on the support area. 219 00:26:21,310 --> 00:26:27,080 And in terms of the order of the work, I started on the sort of the long edge, but in the middle, 220 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:34,990 working out, towards each ends and then a question of turning the patch under and creating a neat edge. 221 00:26:34,990 --> 00:26:47,130 Next slide, please. Let's say this, the slide is designed to highlight one of the challenges with this project. 222 00:26:47,130 --> 00:26:56,700 Many of the patches were in either in areas where there wasn't much space to manoeuvre 223 00:26:56,700 --> 00:27:02,490 or there weren't really areas that you could anchor your support patch into easily. 224 00:27:02,490 --> 00:27:11,050 So, for instance, in the bottom left corner, you can see where I'm finishing the patch off at the bottom of the spine. The area that I would 225 00:27:11,050 --> 00:27:18,690 ideally like to tuck my patch under and into has that the the metal corner plate in place. 226 00:27:18,690 --> 00:27:22,410 So it's a question of devising a way round that. 227 00:27:22,410 --> 00:27:29,880 Equally, in the patch above, you can see that this is where the patch goes around the edge of the board. 228 00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:38,850 And again, one of the challenge here is getting an effective tension on the little patch that has been inserted. 229 00:27:38,850 --> 00:27:45,750 Thank you, Maria as well. It's lovely to see your photos and then think back to the, watching you do your treatments. 230 00:27:45,750 --> 00:27:50,280 We're very lucky, thanks to Matthew Shaw, the Librarian at Queen's. 231 00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:56,250 To have three books to show you under the visualiser. The first one is the largest of the three. 232 00:27:56,250 --> 00:28:04,890 It's also obviously the one that you've seen earlier on the slides and the one in the red velvet binding. 233 00:28:04,890 --> 00:28:17,070 So it's a great, I think, a nice shot of the very characteristic look of these bindings with the five sort of circular bosses. 234 00:28:17,070 --> 00:28:24,190 Always in that sort of same pattern of sort of distribution across the boards. 235 00:28:24,190 --> 00:28:28,950 This is a 13th century manuscript written in England. 236 00:28:28,950 --> 00:28:35,110 Peter Lombard's commentary on the psalms. 237 00:28:35,110 --> 00:28:46,480 The area that Maria was talking about earlier, where there would have been a sort of short title label under a probably horn can be seen on the 238 00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,690 upper side where Andrews is pointing now. 239 00:28:49,690 --> 00:28:55,040 So we have an area that is less faded. Maria, 240 00:28:55,040 --> 00:29:05,720 I don't know whether you want to say anything about that, but I guess it shows the sort of full strength of the colour of these books. 241 00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:10,460 Yes, absolutely, it is really. It also sort of indicates, doesn't it, 242 00:29:10,460 --> 00:29:17,990 that that label was lost relatively recently in terms of the fact that we can still see that unequally. 243 00:29:17,990 --> 00:29:24,410 That was the other virtue of when you were doing your work and you were able to see all of the sort of turn in areas on the other 244 00:29:24,410 --> 00:29:30,890 side that often gave us a good indication of what original colour or a close indication of what the original colour had been. 245 00:29:30,890 --> 00:29:39,410 Absolutely, yes. Andrew, I wonder if you can just show the, we're still staying with that view of the upper board, 246 00:29:39,410 --> 00:29:47,840 but I wonder if it's possible to show the clasp straps which are pink stained 247 00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:53,120 alum taw and four out of five of the red textile bindings that Queen's have 248 00:29:53,120 --> 00:30:00,000 those, have that material used for the clasp strap. 249 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:08,040 And that's partly why it's interesting that manuscript 323 had the tanned clasp straps, 250 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:13,440 so obviously there's a bit of a change of treatment of them. 251 00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,430 And you may not be able to see it and it might not be worth trying. 252 00:30:17,430 --> 00:30:20,730 And in fact, that might have come through a little bit better on the slides. 253 00:30:20,730 --> 00:30:30,350 But this does have a fragment of the blue and pink endband at the head, but it's very tiny, so. 254 00:30:30,350 --> 00:30:42,520 Yes, you can just about see it there. Great. So, Andrew, if you would open the left board. 255 00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:54,620 please. The upper endleaves were disturbed and only the paste-down remained. 256 00:30:54,620 --> 00:30:59,960 If you could turn to the first folio, that would be great. 257 00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:13,610 Just so that people can see what the text actually looks like. There was a rather large suction pleat vertically through the first folio, so, 258 00:31:13,610 --> 00:31:24,370 that was one of the things I had to work on to make sure that was resolved during the treatment. 259 00:31:24,370 --> 00:31:38,740 What you can see there is also a bifolium of new calf parchment, which was sewn through to provide some protection to that first folio, 260 00:31:38,740 --> 00:31:43,600 which had been unprotected and was becoming suction pleated, as I said. 261 00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:52,550 So I noticed the other day when we were looking at these that that's taking on the undulations of the textblock, so it's quite nice to see. 262 00:31:52,550 --> 00:32:05,600 On that left paste-down, if you can show the detail of the paste deposit that remains where the fore-edge short title piece would have been. 263 00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:12,080 So again, it's a feature that we were looking for that is of interest. 264 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:18,980 And obviously they didn't survive that well, obviously the paste having dried out and the little label disappearing. 265 00:32:18,980 --> 00:32:30,840 So it's very nice to see it when it does survive. And back out to the upper board of the left board please. 266 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:40,650 There was a central split in the wooden board, probably related to the nailing on the central boss. 267 00:32:40,650 --> 00:32:44,910 This was repaired with gelatine and parchment splits, 268 00:32:44,910 --> 00:32:55,050 and there was also structural work to do. If you could possibly show the spine. Structural work to do for the first sewing support. 269 00:32:55,050 --> 00:33:02,040 And that is covered up by Maria's beautiful infill, about which you might want to say, 270 00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,330 Say a few words. Yes. 271 00:33:06,330 --> 00:33:14,310 So one of the challenges with all of these infills to do with the spine as opposed to the edges of the board, 272 00:33:14,310 --> 00:33:22,920 was ensuring that the patch was sort of substantial enough, that it sort of had its own sort of presence as it were. 273 00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:27,780 And it sort of emulated the original fabric that was used for the spine, 274 00:33:27,780 --> 00:33:34,320 but still needed to be flexible enough that it would sort of move with the book when the book was opened. 275 00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:39,390 And so this was one of the big challenges in terms of creating these. 276 00:33:39,390 --> 00:33:43,770 The other challenge, of course, was thinking about what colour to make them, 277 00:33:43,770 --> 00:33:50,520 because as you can see from this angle, it's very difficult to match to any one colour. 278 00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:53,900 There are a variety of different colours that are now apparent in my area, 279 00:33:53,900 --> 00:34:01,950 so it was a question of choosing a compromise that sort of worked for the area in question. 280 00:34:01,950 --> 00:34:06,990 But that was certainly one of the big challenges that we had when we were looking at these. 281 00:34:06,990 --> 00:34:13,800 And again, why we often went for these sort of compound patches to try and also give a slight sense of the texture so 282 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:24,160 that it wasn't quite as smooth as some of just the plain cotton poplin by itself. Thank you Andrew. 283 00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:28,930 We might move on to that a little bit, but that was one of the things that I found very, 284 00:34:28,930 --> 00:34:39,880 very interesting in working with Maria was that that aspect of matching materials by not just colours and not just a block of colour, 285 00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:46,360 but looking at texture as well and surfaces. So that was really nice 286 00:34:46,360 --> 00:35:05,010 Yes, we are going to swap to the next one please. That is manuscript 317, which Maria showed during treatment. 287 00:35:05,010 --> 00:35:07,630 Thank you. 288 00:35:07,630 --> 00:35:21,250 So the text for this manuscript is the gospels of Matthew and Mark written in the 12th, from the 12th to 13th century, possibly at Reading Abbey. 289 00:35:21,250 --> 00:35:31,900 And if it was not written at Reading, then at least it came to the Abbey after the booklist of 1190, circa 1190, was compiled. 290 00:35:31,900 --> 00:35:43,480 It's absent from that list, so just a bit of pre Tudor history, and I'm obviously quoting from Peter Kidd's manuscript catalogue. 291 00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:50,680 Andrew, could you open the left board and show the Reading Abbey ex libris, please. 292 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,370 Not exactly sure. Yes, there it is, right there. Yes. 293 00:35:54,370 --> 00:36:03,130 So that is a sort of form of a curse, which brings anathema on the person who removes the book from the library. 294 00:36:03,130 --> 00:36:13,720 So quite interesting in itself. You can see it's a slightly smaller manuscript. 295 00:36:13,720 --> 00:36:27,490 It's sewn on slit alum tawed support. And this is one that obviously retains its medieval structure and has been recovered on entry into the library. 296 00:36:27,490 --> 00:36:35,680 If you wouldn't mind shutting it, please, again, there's the same arrangement of bosses, corner and edge pieces. 297 00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:40,930 But the design is different, so it is again the gilt copper alloy. 298 00:36:40,930 --> 00:36:48,930 But that kind of half domed and I think much simpler than 299 00:36:48,930 --> 00:36:55,500 the bosses that appear on the red velvet, which are 300 00:36:55,500 --> 00:37:06,330 more complicated and have those sort of excised areas where you can see the textile through this, I think are sort of more simple. 301 00:37:06,330 --> 00:37:12,630 And you can see that they're fairly crudely made. 302 00:37:12,630 --> 00:37:19,530 So that, I think, is interesting as well. And there is this relationship between the metalwork and the textile covering. 303 00:37:19,530 --> 00:37:32,180 So the red ones have these sort of more delicate, more decorative metalwork and the black ones have this sort of rather more, 304 00:37:32,180 --> 00:37:45,770 Oh, I don't know. Rather more simple, simple type of boss. 305 00:37:45,770 --> 00:37:54,590 The treatment of this was relatively similar to manuscript 323, which I described in more detail during my presentation, 306 00:37:54,590 --> 00:38:01,160 but again, as is so often with the conservation, it's a question of the detachment of the boards usually. 307 00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:08,770 So I did a similar sort of work to reattach the boards. 308 00:38:08,770 --> 00:38:24,510 And, Andrew, could you show the fore-edge of the left board, for the detail of that. But as it turns, you'll see that, Ah yes that's quite clear, 309 00:38:24,510 --> 00:38:40,980 On the sort of board edge, you can see a small fragment of paper label, which apparently had the shelfmark S13 and dates to the late 17th century. 310 00:38:40,980 --> 00:38:52,760 So. In terms of the treatment, Maria and I had a discussion about this, and obviously we want to remove that, 311 00:38:52,760 --> 00:39:00,680 we weren't quite sure when that might have been put on, and perhaps it had been put on after the 17th century. 312 00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:10,910 But still, the edges of the damaged textile in that area were stable and we decided that we would not, 313 00:39:10,910 --> 00:39:16,430 there was no need to sort of infill that area to stabilise the textile edges. 314 00:39:16,430 --> 00:39:21,460 Is that correct, Maria? So that piece has been left as is, 315 00:39:21,460 --> 00:39:36,240 And yeah. And in fact, we might have used a little bit of paste just to put down those edges. 316 00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:54,270 But in fact. Yes, thanks, the next one please. Got my eye on the time I think we might need to speed up a bit. 317 00:39:54,270 --> 00:40:04,830 And the last one is the Manuscript 323, the gloss Luke, written in the 12th century, again with the Reading Abbey ex libris. 318 00:40:04,830 --> 00:40:16,520 This book is in the Reading Abbey booklist, so was in the library during the 12th century or in the Abbey anyway. 319 00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,760 The list actually mentions two glossed Luke manuscripts, 320 00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:26,390 one described as in corio presso meaning in a stamped leather binding, 321 00:40:26,390 --> 00:40:30,050 and the other one has no binding description. 322 00:40:30,050 --> 00:40:40,560 And if you, Andrew, open the left board, I'm hoping that you will see the impression and staining from an earlier leather covering. 323 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:51,990 Oh, so if you could turn the paste down as well? 324 00:40:51,990 --> 00:40:59,590 Can you see that? Anyway, there is a leather impressions and staining, 325 00:40:59,590 --> 00:41:10,870 so I am wondering, I was wondering whether 323 might be the Reading manuscript in a 12th century blind stamped leather binding. 326 00:41:10,870 --> 00:41:24,510 Yes, thanks. All along. You can see how badly water damaged it was. And also how, as Maria was saying, how 327 00:41:24,510 --> 00:41:39,840 relatively little care was taken with the alignment of the fabric, and making the turn in sort of neat and equal in size. 328 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:53,590 Andrew you could close that now. Maria mentioned quite a bit about the problem of loss of pile and in this manuscript, Maria, 329 00:41:53,590 --> 00:42:03,320 we talked a lot about at one point whether there would be a kind of overlay or something to try to keep the pile 330 00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:16,740 more closely associated with the book. But in the end, I think you felt, is that right, that that would not be 331 00:42:16,740 --> 00:42:23,610 a good way to go for this. I think it was that sense that, 332 00:42:23,610 --> 00:42:30,990 the reason it's losing its pile, so, you know, being predominantly the impact of the dye that was used. 333 00:42:30,990 --> 00:42:40,770 I don't think that putting the overlay on would stop it losing pile, and it would actually be quite sort of disfiguring, 334 00:42:40,770 --> 00:42:44,310 it would sort of obscure the appearance of the book and there would be the question 335 00:42:44,310 --> 00:42:51,930 of how to sort of trim it around all of the book furniture and the sort of fabrics 336 00:42:51,930 --> 00:43:01,410 the textile conservators tend to use for overlays, especially silk crepeline, wouldn't be very easy to hem around these, 337 00:43:01,410 --> 00:43:05,760 and it wouldn't be possible necessarily to tuck it under these. 338 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:14,430 So I felt it was better to leave it without the overlay and that we would suggest sort of 339 00:43:14,430 --> 00:43:21,270 guidance to readers on how to handle this and how to be sort of careful with it when using it, 340 00:43:21,270 --> 00:43:26,250 rather than to just sort of obscure that detail. And as you say, 341 00:43:26,250 --> 00:43:29,100 one of the other things that we had quite a lot of conversation about was the whole 342 00:43:29,100 --> 00:43:32,820 question of when we were thinking about the colour match, were we going to colour 343 00:43:32,820 --> 00:43:39,330 matched to the colour of the pile, so a blacker shade, or, although in some 344 00:43:39,330 --> 00:43:44,820 cases that had sort of changed, or whether we were going to go with the ground weave, 345 00:43:44,820 --> 00:43:50,310 which had taken the dye considerably less well as it was, you know, 346 00:43:50,310 --> 00:43:57,400 the cellulosic fibres didn't dye as well with the dye that was intended for the woolen pile as it was all dyed in a piece. 347 00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:06,870 And so we ended up with something that was paler. And because we did try out a sort of a much stronger black, and it, 348 00:44:06,870 --> 00:44:20,420 it was very jarring because it was just too intense compared to the sort of discoloured and rather faded, and then sort of, and the areas without pile. 349 00:44:20,420 --> 00:44:24,140 Thank you, yes. I just wanted to point out one last thing on this. Andrew 350 00:44:24,140 --> 00:44:35,570 if you tilt the book up and we look at the spine, you can see that Maria has put some very small stitches around the sewing supports. 351 00:44:35,570 --> 00:44:46,870 When we first looked at the book after her treatment, the infill, because it was so large had a tendency to sort of gape. 352 00:44:46,870 --> 00:44:52,220 And it just worked really well that we both thought, oh, 353 00:44:52,220 --> 00:44:57,590 we can use the slotted spine lining of aerolinen underneath, to kind of, as 354 00:44:57,590 --> 00:45:04,490 an anchoring point for those around the supports. Also gives quite a nice, I think, 355 00:45:04,490 --> 00:45:13,760 Maria said, I remember, gives quite a nice indication of the underlying structure, makes it look a little bit more book-like, you know. 356 00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:21,770 Exactly that sense of the tension of the insert on the spine is quite challenging in that it's got to be 357 00:45:21,770 --> 00:45:31,610 smooth so that it can go under the edge where it's flush on the board. 358 00:45:31,610 --> 00:45:38,180 But there needs to be enough sort of movement, option for movement within the 359 00:45:38,180 --> 00:45:41,640 actual area that goes across the spine, so that the book can actually open. 360 00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:50,510 And so this is also that sense of coming up with a treatment that actually ensures that this can function as a binding rather 361 00:45:50,510 --> 00:45:58,780 than something that's just going to be sort of static where you might devise the thought of a slightly different treatment option. 362 00:45:58,780 --> 00:46:06,110 So Jane and I are going to use the next couple of slides just to sort of reflect on what it was like to work together. 363 00:46:06,110 --> 00:46:11,000 And Jane has already alluded to some of the things. So here, 364 00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:18,500 I think this side sort of summed up two key things that struck me about our collaboration. 365 00:46:18,500 --> 00:46:27,560 The first was that we used two complementary vocabularies. 366 00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:33,710 You know, we both had our own terminology to do with textiles or to do with books and their bindings. 367 00:46:33,710 --> 00:46:40,130 And for me, one of the pleasures was learning all of the technical terms and appreciating the 368 00:46:40,130 --> 00:46:46,220 significance of the actual structure of the books and how the binding works. 369 00:46:46,220 --> 00:46:51,530 And the other thing, and that's what you can see here, is the value of discussion. 370 00:46:51,530 --> 00:47:00,050 We spent a lot of time talking about the project before we started and at all of the key stages. 371 00:47:00,050 --> 00:47:07,370 And certainly one of the key things was working out what needed to be done when, so that we were both able to do 372 00:47:07,370 --> 00:47:14,360 the work that we needed and that we both had the access and that neither of us blocked the access to the other. 373 00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,270 So those were certainly the things that in that planning stage, 374 00:47:17,270 --> 00:47:25,000 I found very important. Were there things that you also thought at that point, Jane, I'm sure there were. 375 00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:33,220 Yes. I mean, I'll just echo on your thoughts, really. It was just fantastic to rather than, you know, 376 00:47:33,220 --> 00:47:40,510 trying to make your way through with material you're not very familiar with, to have someone who 377 00:47:40,510 --> 00:47:46,660 is familiar with those who also understands the context so well was really fantastic. 378 00:47:46,660 --> 00:47:54,560 And it was great to be able to make some baby steps, observations of the topics as well. 379 00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:59,300 So it was fantastic experience. So, yes. 380 00:47:59,300 --> 00:48:10,550 Next slide, please. So here you can see one of those classic photographs the conservators take when they're sort of mocking up, 381 00:48:10,550 --> 00:48:16,590 looking at digging, and this is why we were experimenting with various colours and combinations. 382 00:48:16,590 --> 00:48:20,510 So here you can see some of the cotton poplin fabrics, 383 00:48:20,510 --> 00:48:32,930 some of which have silk crepeline overlays that I use just to sort of lift, to stop the poplin looking quite so smooth. 384 00:48:32,930 --> 00:48:38,480 That sense of debating over, do we want for this, this patch here on the spine, 385 00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:47,210 do we want something that matches sort of to the spine or, but then will inevitably look slightly different to what's on the front board. 386 00:48:47,210 --> 00:48:53,180 You know, which area do you make your colour match to, so very 387 00:48:53,180 --> 00:48:58,280 much sort of thinking about the weights of fabrics and the colours of them, 388 00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:03,920 and it's at this stage where I'd initially thought that I would, you know, that the poplin would be fine. 389 00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:12,710 It then became very apparent that we needed to have, or I needed to have something more robust behind it and so the these support patches, 390 00:49:12,710 --> 00:49:24,440 especially for any area in the spine, sometimes might have multiple layers in order to get something that had the degree of rigidity, 391 00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:32,440 but suppleness that was needed. And if we could have the next slide, please. 392 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:41,180 And so for me, it was very interesting, Jane and I were looking at this recently and in one for me, 393 00:49:41,180 --> 00:49:48,740 obviously you can see where I've got the patches placed in around the edges of the binding. 394 00:49:48,740 --> 00:49:57,650 But for me, what I found absolutely fascinating about this project was being able to work after Jane had done her work. 395 00:49:57,650 --> 00:50:03,650 And so here we can absolutely see the wonderful job that she's done on the spine. 396 00:50:03,650 --> 00:50:12,620 And as she was saying when we started with many of these volumes, they were very difficult to handle and very difficult to open. 397 00:50:12,620 --> 00:50:16,040 And so very difficult to access the contents of. 398 00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:23,030 And as a consequence of the work she'd done, you know, became, you know, it became a fully functional book again. 399 00:50:23,030 --> 00:50:28,610 And in that sense, that was one of the things that I found was the nicest part of this 400 00:50:28,610 --> 00:50:39,830 project was being able to follow on from someone's really amazingly skilled work. 401 00:50:39,830 --> 00:50:45,110 So I think that's probably the last of the slides there, but we have a few more, so our next slide, please. 402 00:50:45,110 --> 00:50:50,240 And these are very much Jane's. Yes. 403 00:50:50,240 --> 00:50:56,420 Yes, and just to add to that last slide. Yes. 404 00:50:56,420 --> 00:51:05,970 The sort of differing skills and approaches came together, but there was one vision as well so that I found very, very, very satisfying. 405 00:51:05,970 --> 00:51:15,860 I think, so to be able to work with Maria and watch her very skilled work and then for us both to come together about what the the aim of treatment was. 406 00:51:15,860 --> 00:51:20,990 So I think that was a very nice thing to to look back on. 407 00:51:20,990 --> 00:51:26,570 But going forward, I'm happy to say that we carried on collaborating. 408 00:51:26,570 --> 00:51:34,550 And since the Queen's manuscripts, we've worked on this small velvet binding for Keble College, 409 00:51:34,550 --> 00:51:42,440 which you can see before treatment in the upper left and midway during treatment in the lower right. 410 00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:54,950 With Maria having chosen the infill material and starting to do her very beautiful and careful stitching to support the spine piece. 411 00:51:54,950 --> 00:52:06,360 And next slide. And most recently, we worked on a Hebrew manuscript for Lincoln College, Oxford. 412 00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:16,470 I should really hand over to Maria, because the treatment of the stripey, narrow ribbons was really quite challenging, I think. 413 00:52:16,470 --> 00:52:20,940 And in fact, it was also a challenge to. 414 00:52:20,940 --> 00:52:31,470 Devise a housing solution that will actually keep those conserved ribbons intact, so Maria would you like to say a little bit about it? 415 00:52:31,470 --> 00:52:36,330 I mean, I think the top slide is quite revealing. Yes, 416 00:52:36,330 --> 00:52:41,010 I think probably the main thing was that when it arrived and what you can see on the left 417 00:52:41,010 --> 00:52:48,450 hand side shows that how these sorts of small decorative elements can become damaged, 418 00:52:48,450 --> 00:52:57,450 you know, through use and storage. And they are lovely examples of 18th century striped ribbons that you don't tend to get surviving in other contexts. 419 00:52:57,450 --> 00:53:02,910 So. And it was surprising when we started, we didn't think there was not much left. 420 00:53:02,910 --> 00:53:07,230 But once I untangled them and humidified them, 421 00:53:07,230 --> 00:53:13,980 we found that actually there was quite a significant amount left to the point that they then posed an interesting challenge, as Jane said, 422 00:53:13,980 --> 00:53:21,300 for the storage solutions. So yes, they were lovely to work on, small but fiddly. 423 00:53:21,300 --> 00:53:32,130 Next slide, please. So I think it just remains for us to show some acknowledgements and thank the Bodleian library and 424 00:53:32,130 --> 00:53:38,580 centre for the study of the book for asking us to contribute to this fantastic series of talks. 425 00:53:38,580 --> 00:53:51,017 Thank you very much. Yes, thank you.