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Winchester Psalter

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The Winchester Psalter is an English 12th-century illuminated manuscript psalter ( British Library , Cotton MS Nero C.iv), also sometimes known as the Psalter of Henry of Blois , and formerly known as the St Swithun's Psalter . It was probably made for use in Winchester , most scholars agreeing that the most likely patron was the Henry of Blois , brother of Stephen, King of England , and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 until his death in 1171. Until recent decades it was "a little-studied masterpiece of English Romanesque painting", but it has been the subject of several recent studies.

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69-417: The manuscript now has 142 vellum leaves of 32 x 22.25 cm, which after a fire in 1731 have been cut and mounted individually and rebound. The thirty-eight full-page miniatures are all grouped at the beginning of the manuscript. They are nearly all divided horizontally into two or three compartments with different scenes, creating an unusually extended narrative cycle of more than eighty scenes covering

138-438: A writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves. The generic term animal membrane is sometimes used by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum. The word

207-713: A cross-linked material with high density, stability and heat resistance and low surface tension which imparts good anti-stick or release properties. Chromium salts can also be used to impart moderate anti-stick properties. Historians believe that parchment craft originated as an art form in Europe during the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. Parchment craft at that time occurred principally in Catholic communities, where crafts persons created lace-like items such as devotional pictures and communion cards. The craft developed over time, with new techniques and refinements being added. Until

276-498: A cruder form, usually thick, harsh, less highly polished than vellum, but with no distinction between skin of calf, or sheep, or of goat. French sources, closer to the original etymology, tend to define velin as from calf only, while the British Standards Institution defines parchment as made from the split skin of several species, and vellum from the unsplit skin. In the usage of modern practitioners of

345-413: A day to ensure the solution's deep and uniform penetration. Replacing the lime water bath also sped the process up. However, if the skins were soaked in the liquor too long, they would be weakened and not able to stand the stretching required for parchment. After soaking in water to make the skins workable, the skins were placed on a stretching frame. A simple frame with nails would work well in stretching

414-587: A diploma as a "sheepskin" alludes to the time when diplomas were written on vellum made from animal hides. British Acts of Parliament are still printed on vellum for archival purposes, as are those of the Republic of Ireland . In February 2016, the UK House of Lords announced that legislation would be printed on archival paper instead of the traditional vellum from April 2016. However, Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock intervened by agreeing to fund

483-490: A high-quality traditional vellum, paper vellum could be produced thin enough to be virtually transparent to strong light, enabling a source drawing to be used directly in the reproduction of field-used drawings. Vellum is ideally stored in a stable environment with constant temperature and 30% (± 5%) relative humidity . If vellum is stored in an environment with less than 11% relative humidity, it becomes fragile, and vulnerable to mechanical stresses . However, if it

552-452: A natural non-porous cement, that gives to the vegetable parchment paper its resistance to grease and its semi-translucency. Other processes can be used to obtain grease-resistant paper, such as waxing the paper or using fluorine -based chemicals. Highly beating the fibers gives an even more translucent paper with the same grease resistance. Silicone and other coatings may also be applied to the parchment. A silicone -coating treatment produces

621-646: A primary choice for artists' supports by the end of the 15th century Renaissance . This was partly due to its expense and partly due to its unusual working properties. Parchment consists mostly of collagen . When the water in paint media touches the parchment's surface, the collagen melts slightly, forming a raised bed for the paint, a quality highly prized by some artists. Parchment is also extremely affected by its environment and changes in humidity, which can cause buckling. Books with parchment pages were bound with strong wooden boards and clamped tightly shut by metal (often brass) clasps or leather straps; this acted to keep

690-406: A raised effect, stippling, perforating, coloring and cutting. Parchment craft appears in hand made cards, as scrapbook embellishments, as bookmarks, lampshades, decorative small boxes, wall hangings and more. The radiocarbon dating techniques that are used on papyrus can be applied to parchment as well. They do not date the age of the writing but the preparation of the parchment itself. While it

759-431: A small DNA sample to a size sufficiently large for testing. The article discusses the use of DNA testing to estimate the age of the calf at the creation of the vellum parchment. A 2006 study revealed the genetic signature of several Greek manuscripts to have "goat-related sequences". Utilizing these techniques we may be able to determine whether related library materials were made from genetically related animals (perhaps from

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828-399: A waterleaf (an unsized paper like blotters) made of pulp fibers into sulfuric acid . The sulfuric acid hydrolyses and solubilises the main natural organic polymer, cellulose, present in the pulp wood fibers. The paper web is then washed in water, which stops the hydrolysis of the cellulose and causes a kind of cellulose coating to form on the waterleaf. The final paper is dried. This coating is

897-481: A wooden frame known as a stretching frame. After a carcass is skinned , the hide is soaked in water for about a day. This removes blood and grime and prepares the skin for a dehairing liquor. The dehairing liquor was originally made of rotted, or fermented, vegetable matter, like beer or other liquors, but by the Middle Ages a dehairing bath included lime . Today, the lime solution is occasionally sharpened by

966-453: Is also underway. Hand-prepared skins are usually preferred by artists because they are more uniform in surface and have fewer oily spots – which can cause long-term cracking of paint – than mass-produced parchment, which is usually made for lamp shades, furniture, or other interior design purposes. Parchment is prepared from pelt – i.e. wet, unhaired, and limed skin – by drying at ordinary temperatures under tension, most commonly on

1035-442: Is also used on instruments such as the banjo and the bodhran , although synthetic skins are available for these instruments and have become more commonly used. The Catholic Church still issues its decrees and diplomas for its officials on vellum. Modern imitation vellum is made from plasticized rag cotton or fibers from interior tree bark . Terms include: paper vellum, Japanese vellum, and vegetable vellum. Paper vellum

1104-601: Is based in Newport Pagnell , Buckinghamshire . A modern imitation is made of cotton . Known as paper vellum, this material is considerably cheaper than animal vellum and can be found in most art and drafting supply stores. Some brands of writing paper and other sorts of paper use the term "vellum" to suggest quality. Vellum is still used for Jewish scrolls, of the Torah in particular, for luxury bookbinding , memorial books, and for various documents in calligraphy . It

1173-414: Is deliberately done to reflect the social status of the subjects depicted; Haney considers it may be the result of an artist working closely with a less skilled assistant. Apart from the two "Byzantine" miniatures, all the others have borders of geometric ornament, onto which the central image sometimes impinges. Many scenes or parts of scenes are just drawn in ink, presumably unfinished, especially towards

1242-517: Is derived from the Koinē Greek city name, Pergamum in Anatolia , where parchment was supposedly first developed around the second century BCE, probably as a substitute for papyrus . Today the term parchment is often used in non-technical contexts to refer to any animal skin, particularly goat , sheep or cow , that has been scraped or dried under tension. The term originally referred only to

1311-505: Is feasibly possible also to radiocarbon date certain kinds of ink, it is extremely difficult to do due to the fact that they are generally present on the text only in trace amounts, and it is hard to get a carbon sample of them without the carbon in the parchment contaminating it. An article published in 2009 considered the possibilities of tracing the origin of medieval parchment manuscripts and codices through DNA analysis. The methodology would employ polymerase chain reaction to replicate

1380-579: Is for these reasons that many modern conservators , librarians and archivists prefer to use either the broader term parchment , or the neutral term animal membrane . The word parchment evolved (via the Latin pergamenum and the French parchemin ) from the name of the city of Pergamon , which was a thriving center of parchment production during the Hellenistic period . The city so dominated

1449-414: Is generally smooth and durable, but there are great variations in its texture which are affected by the way it is made and the quality of the skin. The making involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame (a "herse"), and scraping of the skin with a crescent-shaped knife (a "lunarium" or " lunellum "). To create tension, the process goes back and forth between scraping, wetting and drying. Scratching

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1518-453: Is produced by large companies in Israel . This usage is Sinaitic in origin, with special designations for different types of parchment such as gevil and klaf . For those uses, only hides of kosher animals are permitted. Since there are many requirements for it being fit for the religious use, the liming is usually processed under supervision of a qualified Rabbi . In some universities,

1587-400: Is stored in an environment with greater than 40% relative humidity, it becomes vulnerable to gelation and to mould or fungus growth. The optimal relative humidity for proper storage of vellum does not overlap that of paper, which poses a challenge for libraries. The optimal temperature for the keeping of vellum is approximately 20 °C (68 °F). Parchment Parchment is

1656-424: Is usually translucent and its various sizes are often used in applications where tracing is required, such as architectural plans . Its dimensions are more stable than a linen or paper sheet, which is frequently critical in the development of large scaled drawings such as blueprints . Paper vellum has also become extremely important in hand or chemical reproduction technology for dissemination of plan copies. Like

1725-547: The Assyrians and the Babylonians most commonly impressed their cuneiform on clay tablets, but they also wrote on parchment from the 6th century BC onward. By the fourth century AD, in cultures that traditionally used papyrus for writing, parchment began to become the new standard for use in manufacturing important books, and most works which wished to be preserved were eventually moved from papyrus to parchment. In

1794-667: The British Museum , from which the British Library was formed in 1973. The manuscript was on semi-permanent exhibition at the British Museum, but is now rarely exhibited at the St Pancras site of the British Library. Vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material . It is often distinguished from parchment , either by being made from calfskin (rather than

1863-473: The Cotton Genesis but not in works from later periods. Other details show awareness of Carolingian and Ottonian traditions, while much else continues Anglo-Saxon and English Romanesque iconography. The manuscript contains: Several pieces of evidence suggest that the patron was Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to 1171: Some pieces of evidence suggest instead that the manuscript

1932-754: The Fourth Dynasty (c. 2550–2450 BC), but the earliest of such documents extant are: a fragmentary roll of leather of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 24th century BC), unrolled by Dr. H. Ibscher, and preserved in the Cairo Museum ; a roll of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1990–1777 BC) now in Berlin; the mathematical text now in the British Museum (MS. 10250); and a document of the reign of Ramses II (early thirteenth century BC)." Civilizations such as

2001-763: The Old Testament (6 pages), the Life of the Virgin and Life of Christ (23 pages) and several scenes covering the Second Coming and Last Judgement (9 pages) - a number of non-narrative subjects such as the Jesse Tree , Christ in Majesty and an enthroned Virgin being included in these figures. Together they form "one of the most unusual and innovative miniature cycles of the twelfth century" Most of

2070-540: The Vienna Genesis , which at least at one time are believed to have been reserved for Imperial commissions. Many techniques for parchment repair exist, to restore creased, torn, or incomplete parchments. Between the seventh and the ninth centuries, many earlier parchment manuscripts were scrubbed and scoured to be ready for rewriting, and often the earlier writing can still be read. These recycled parchments are known as palimpsests . The way in which parchment

2139-419: The 180-copy edition of Johannes Gutenberg 's first Bible printed in 1455 with movable type was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book. Paper was used for most book-printing, as it was cheaper and easier to process through a printing press and to bind . The twelfth-century Winchester Bible was also written on approximately 250 calfskins. In art, vellum

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2208-539: The 5th century BC; and in his Histories (v.58) he states that the Ionians of Asia Minor had been accustomed to give the name of skins ( diphtherai ) to books; this word was adapted by Hellenized Jews to describe scrolls. Writing on prepared animal skins had a long history in other cultures outside of the Greeks as well. David Diringer noted that "the first mention of Egyptian documents written on leather goes back to

2277-400: The artistic crafts of writing, illuminating, lettering, and bookbinding, "vellum" is normally reserved for calfskin, while any other skin is called "parchment". Vellum allows some light to pass through it. It is made from the skin of a young animal. The skin is washed with water and lime ( calcium hydroxide ), and then soaked in lime for several days to soften and remove the hair. Once clear,

2346-426: The baselines on which the text was entered and with vertical bounding lines that marked the boundaries of the columns". Most of the finer sort of medieval manuscripts, whether illuminated or not, were written on vellum. Some Gandhāran Buddhist texts were written on vellum, and all Sifrei Torah (Hebrew: ספר תורה Sefer Torah; plural: ספרי תורה, Sifrei Torah) are written on kosher klaf or vellum. A quarter of

2415-407: The boundaries between these terms. In 1519, William Horman could write in his Vulgaria : "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan." Writing in 1936, Lee Ustick explained that: To-day the distinction, among collectors of manuscripts, is that vellum is a highly refined form of skin, parchment

2484-533: The continued use of vellum from the Cabinet Office budget. On 2017, the House of Commons Commission agreed that it would provide front and back vellum covers for record copies of Acts. Today, because of low demand and complicated manufacturing process, animal vellum is expensive and hard to find. The only UK company still producing traditional parchment and vellum is William Cowley (established 1870), which

2553-531: The covering for stiff board bindings. Vellum can be stained virtually any color but seldom is, as a great part of its beauty and appeal rests in its faint grain and hair markings, as well as its warmth and simplicity. Lasting in excess of 1,000 years—for example, Pastoral Care (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 504) , dates from about 600 and is in excellent condition—animal vellum can be far more durable than paper. For this reason, many important documents are written on animal vellum, such as diplomas. Referring to

2622-505: The demands of printers. There was a short period during the introduction of printing where parchment and paper were used at the same time, with parchment (in fact vellum) the more expensive luxury option, preferred by rich and conservative customers. Although most copies of the Gutenberg Bible are on paper, some were printed on parchment; 12 of the 48 surviving copies, with most incomplete. In 1490, Johannes Trithemius preferred

2691-438: The eighteenth century, people were regaining interest in detailed handwork. Parchment cards became larger in size and crafters began adding wavy borders and perforations. In the nineteenth century, influenced by French romanticism, parchment crafters began adding floral themes and cherubs and hand embossing. Parchment craft today involves various techniques, including tracing a pattern with white or colored ink, embossing to create

2760-613: The end of the cycle. Some paint has been added to areas by a less skilled artist, probably a few decades after the original work. Many miniatures have titles in Norman-French, in a different hand to the main text, probably added later in the 12th century. The original sequence of the miniatures is uncertain. Haney's analysis of the iconography of the cycle suggests a variety of sources and influences were involved. Some details can be found in Early Christian works such as

2829-461: The fire in 1731 at Ashburnham House in which many of the Cotton manuscripts were damaged. As a result, the bifolia were split into single leaves, and there is some uncertainty about their original sequence, which has been partly resolved by the recent discovery of verdigris offsets which confirm which miniatures originally faced each other. Cotton's library formed one of the foundation collections of

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2898-440: The following exchange occurs: Hamlet. Is not parchment made of sheepskins? Horatio. Ay, my lord, and of calves' skins too. Lee Ustick, writing in 1936, commented: To-day the distinction, among collectors of manuscripts, is that vellum is a highly refined form of skin, parchment a cruder form, usually thick, harsh, less highly polished than vellum, but with no distinction between skin of calf, or sheep, or of goat. It

2967-426: The frame they would keep their form. The stretching aligned the fibres to be more nearly parallel to the surface. To make the parchment more aesthetically pleasing or more suitable for the scribes , special treatments were used. According to Reed there were a variety of these treatments. Rubbing pumice powder into the flesh side of parchment while it was still wet on the frame was used to make it smooth and to modify

3036-519: The institution of employing parchment made of animal hides for the writing of ritual objects, as detailed below. In the United Kingdom, Acts of Parliament are still printed on vellum. The heyday of parchment use was during the medieval period, but there has been a growing revival of its use among artists since the late 20th century. Although parchment never stopped being used (primarily for governmental documents and diplomas) it had ceased to be

3105-439: The later Middle Ages , especially the 15th century, parchment was largely replaced by paper for most uses except luxury manuscripts, some of which were also on paper. New techniques in paper milling allowed it to be much cheaper than parchment; it was made of textile rags and of very high quality. Following the arrival of printing in the later fifteenth century AD, the supply of animal skins for parchment could not keep up with

3174-520: The medieval instructions now followed by modern membrane makers. The makers rubbed them with a round, flat object ("pouncing") to ensure that the ink would adhere to the surface. Even so, ink would gradually flake off of the membrane, especially if it was used in a scroll that was frequently rolled and unrolled. Once the vellum is prepared, traditionally a quire is formed of a group of several sheets. Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham point out, in their Introduction to Manuscript Studies , that "the quire

3243-674: The miniatures are drawings tinted with coloured washes set against fully painted backgrounds. This is a common English technique from at least the 11th to the 13th century. Two miniatures, of the Death of the Virgin and the Virgin Enthroned , are in a different fully painted technique and style, and follow Byzantine iconographic models , although the forms of the drapery are English in style. The other miniatures are all closely related to one another in style, though some are of markedly higher quality than others. According to Heslop, this

3312-482: The older methods, because "handwriting placed on parchment will be able to endure a thousand years. But how long will printing last, which is dependent on paper? For if ... it lasts for two hundred years that is a long time." In fact, high-quality paper from this period has survived 500 years or more very well, if kept in reasonable library conditions. Parchment (or vellum) continues to be use for ritual or legal reasons. Rabbinic literature traditionally maintains that

3381-433: The pages pressed flat despite humidity changes. Such metal fittings continued to be found on books as decorative features even after the use of paper made them unnecessary. Some contemporary artists prize the changeability of parchment, noting that the material seems alive and like an active participant in making artwork. To support the needs of the revival of use by artists, a revival in the art of preparing individual skins

3450-399: The pelts. The skins could be attached by wrapping small, smooth rocks in the skins with rope or leather strips. Both sides would be left open to the air so they could be scraped with a sharp, semi-lunar knife to remove the last of the hair and get the skin to the right thickness. The skins, which were made almost entirely of collagen , would form a natural glue while drying and once taken off

3519-417: The piece of skin. The number of sheets depends on the size of the skin and the required length and breadth of each individual sheet. For example, the average calfskin could provide roughly three and a half medium sheets of writing material. The makers can double it when they fold the skin into two conjoined leaves, also known as a bifolium. Historians have found evidence of manuscripts where the scribe wrote down

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3588-471: The precise animal origin of a skin, either in terms of its species or in terms of the animal's age. In practice, therefore, there has long been considerable blurring of the boundaries between the different terms. In 1519, William Horman wrote in his Vulgaria : "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan." In Shakespeare 's Hamlet (written c. 1599–1602)

3657-519: The same thing, however the quality level differs, sometimes greatly. Though Christopher de Hamel , an expert on medieval manuscripts, writes that "for most purposes the words parchment and vellum are interchangeable", a number of distinctions have been made in the past and present. The word "vellum" is borrowed from Old French vélin 'calfskin', derived in turn from the Latin word vitulinum 'made from calf'. However, in Europe, from Roman times,

3726-438: The sixteenth century, parchment craft was a European art form. However, missionaries and other settlers relocated to South America, taking parchment craft with them. As before, the craft appeared largely among the Catholic communities. Often, young girls receiving their first communion received gifts of handmade parchment crafts. Although the invention of the printing press led to a reduced interest in hand made cards and items, by

3795-409: The skin by attaching it to a frame (a "herse"). They attach the skin at points around the edge with cords and wrap the part next to these points around a pebble (a "pippin"). They then use a crescent shaped knife, (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"), to clean off any remaining hairs. The makers thoroughly clean the skin and process it into sheets once it is completely dry. They can extract many sheets from

3864-449: The skin of other animals), or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellum is prepared for writing and printing on single pages, scrolls , and codices (books). Modern scholars and experts often prefer to use the broader term "membrane", which avoids the need to draw a distinction between vellum and parchment. It may be very hard to determine the animal species involved (let alone its age) without detailed scientific analysis. Vellum

3933-703: The skin of sheep and, occasionally, goats. The equivalent material made from calfskin, which was of finer quality, was known as vellum (from the Old French velin or vellin , and ultimately from the Latin vitulus , meaning a calf); while the finest of all was uterine vellum , taken from a calf foetus or stillborn calf. Some authorities have sought to observe these distinctions strictly: for example, lexicographer Samuel Johnson in 1755, and master calligrapher Edward Johnston in 1906. However, when old books and documents are encountered it may be difficult, without scientific analysis, to determine

4002-406: The surface to enable inks to penetrate more deeply. Powders and pastes of calcium compounds were also used to help remove grease so the ink would not run. To make the parchment smooth and white, thin pastes (starchgrain or staunchgrain) of lime, flour, egg whites and milk were rubbed into the skins. Meliora di Curci in her paper, "The History and Technology of Parchment Making", notes that parchment

4071-409: The surface with pumice , and treating with lime or chalk to make it suitable for writing or printing ink can create a final look. Modern "paper vellum" is made of plant cellulose fibers and gets its name from its similar usage to actual vellum, as well as its high quality. It is used for a variety of purposes including tracing, technical drawings, plans and blueprints . Tracing paper is essentially

4140-587: The trade that a legend later arose which said that parchment had been invented in Pergamon to replace the use of papyrus which had become monopolized by the rival city of Alexandria . This account, originating in the writings of Pliny the Elder ( Natural History , Book XIII, 69–70), is almost assuredly false because parchment had been in use in Anatolia and elsewhere long before the rise of Pergamon. Herodotus mentions writing on skins as common in his time,

4209-433: The two sides of the skin are distinct: the body side and the hairy side. The "inside body side" of the skin is usually the lighter and more refined of the two. The hair follicles may be visible on the outer side, together with any scars from when the animal was alive. The membrane can also show the pattern of the animal's vein network called the "veining" of the sheet. The makers remove any remaining hair ("scudding") and dry

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4278-412: The use of sodium sulfide. The liquor bath would have been in wooden or stone vats and the hides stirred with a long wooden pole to avoid human contact with the alkaline solution. Sometimes the skins would stay in the dehairing bath for eight or more days depending how concentrated and how warm the solution was kept – dehairing could take up to twice as long in winter. The vat was stirred two or three times

4347-408: The word parchment is still used to refer to the certificate (scroll) presented at graduation ceremonies, even though the modern document is printed on paper or thin card; although doctoral graduates may be given the option of having their scroll written by a calligrapher on vellum. Heriot-Watt University still uses goatskin parchment for their degrees. Vegetable (paper) parchment is made by passing

4416-489: The word was used for the best quality of prepared skin, regardless of the animal from which the hide was obtained. Calf , sheep , and goat were all commonly used, and other animals, including pig, deer, donkey, horse, or camel were used on occasion. The best quality, "uterine vellum", was said to be made from the skins of stillborn or unborn animals, although the term was also applied to fine quality skins made from young animals. However, there has long been much blurring of

4485-642: Was not always white. " Cennini , a 15th-century craftsman provides recipes to tint parchment a variety of colours including purple, indigo, green, red and peach." The Early medieval Codex Argenteus and Codex Vercellensis , the Stockholm Codex Aureus and the Codex Brixianus give a range of luxuriously produced manuscripts all on purple vellum , in imitation of Byzantine examples, like the Rossano Gospels , Sinope Gospels and

4554-401: Was not made for Henry of Blois, and may instead have been made for a woman, although the personal Latin prayers use masculine forms: It is not known where the manuscript was between the 13th century and 1638, when it appears in a catalogue of the collection formed by the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton between about 1588 and 1629, and added to by his son and grandson. The manuscript was damaged in

4623-533: Was processed (from hide to parchment) has undergone a tremendous evolution based on time and location. Parchment and vellum are not the sole methods of preparing animal skins for writing. In the Babylonian Talmud ( Bava Batra 14B), Moses is described as having written the first Torah Scroll on the unsplit cow-hide called gevil . Parchment is still the only medium used by traditional religious Jews for Torah scrolls or tefilin and mezuzahs , and

4692-510: Was the scribe's basic writing unit throughout the Middle Ages". Guidelines are then made on the membrane. They note " 'pricking' is the process of making holes in a sheet of parchment (or membrane) in preparation of its ruling. The lines were then made by ruling between the prick marks ...The process of entering ruled lines on the page to serve as a guide for entering text. Most manuscripts were ruled with horizontal lines that served as

4761-556: Was used for paintings, especially if they needed to be sent long distances, before canvas became widely used in about 1500, and continued to be used for drawings, and watercolours . Old master prints were sometimes printed on vellum, especially for presentation copies, until at least the seventeenth century. Limp vellum or limp-parchment bindings were used frequently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and were sometimes gilt but were also often not embellished . In later centuries vellum has been more commonly used like leather, that is, as

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