(hairs still present
at the top of the page)
and put through a series of processes to dispose of fat, smooth away
blemishes, and refine to a smooth surface. The rougher, more yellow side
of the sheet, which may be marked with little black specks in places where
the hair follicles were if the animal was large, is the outer side of the
skin, and the inner side is paler. When well prepared, vellum is easier
to write on than paper.
The skins of a range of animals were used, depending on the size and
quality required.: for a small fine manuscript, the fetus of a calf might
be used, yielding a skin as fine as tissue paper. Pigskin was unsuitable,
because the bristles had such large follicles the skin would be heavily
pitted. Further information can be found here
Bookbinding
Large
books such as these (570 x 395 mm), which may have had upto 360 pages,
or 180 sheets of vellum folded in half, must have required a whole skin
from an animal the size of a young steer. The sheet of vellum would have
been folded in half, with the rougher, more yellow side on the outside,
the folded sheets tucked inside each other like a newspaper, and then sewn
together down the central fold.
When tearing the
page out of the book, the wires caused these cuts in the edge of the page.
Each group of such sheets is called a gathering. The gatherings were then stacked on top of each other, and all sewn together, using the initial stitches through the center fold of the gathering as a foundation for the second stage of sewing.
Boards
To
protect the codex, as this text block of pages was first called, wooden
boards were attached back and front by cords which had been integrated
into the sewing structure. The cords were inserted into holes in the boards
and fixed with wooden pegs, and the manuscript then had an outer protective
covering, which was quite often augmented by metal studs. A medium as firm
and heavy as wood was necessary to keep the vellum text block in shape,
because skin flexes and shifts with changes in temperature and humidity.
The "memory" of
the sheet causes moist induced wrinkles when outside a hard cover
We still call the covers of a book the boards, despite the fact that for over three centuries now cardboard has been used instead.
To create huge manuscripts such as these in this way was a big commitment
on the part of a monastic community. It is most unlikely that a monastery
would have sufficient resources within the community to supply the skins,
so the vellum would have had to be bought in. It may have been gradually
accumulated over many years.