Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

The Language of Parchment – Learning about the History of Manuscripts
with the Help of Visual Assessment of the Parchment
Jirí Vnoucek
The Royal Library, Department of Preservation, Copenhagen, Denmark
Introduction
Studies of the physical appearance of the parchment,
which has been used for writing manuscripts,
can provide an interesting supplement
to the existing forms of manuscript research and
help to create a more complex image of the information
recorded in medieval books.
The rocketing development of modern technologies
has also brought a great improvement
in scientific analyses of materials. In recent
years we have been given very detailed and exact
information about collagen fibre and amino
acids, the basic component of parchment. From
microscopically sized samples it is possible to
identify the DNA of the animal from whose skin
the parchment was produced or to analyse the
processes that caused degradation of the collagen
fibre. Although this information opens up
new horizons in many fields of this research, it
is still necessary to interpret the results obtained
correctly and within the context of further studies
in sciences that support history and namely
studies of codicology in order to exploit their
potentials to the full.
It is rather paradoxical that on the one hand
we can learn almost intimate details about the
parchment itself while on the other hand the
description of parchment in codicological literature
lags far behind, being content with general
descriptions of its qualities, often vague and
inexact, and it is only occasionally that specific
features are noted which are characteristic for
different types of parchment and its methods
of preparation. It is not rare for these to be presented
more like curiosities than important information
for a detailed description and further
studies of the parchment.
It seems that codicologists are slightly uncertain
as to what is to be expected from modern
scientific analyses, since their questions in this
field are mostly limited to the identification of
the types of animal skin from which parchment
was made or they expect answers to rather bizarre
questions concerning the use of uterine
parchment and other rarities, theories which
turn up in literature repeatedly.
In this context it might be thought quite
surprising that rather simple non-destructive
methods of visual observation of parchment can
yield a whole spectrum of interesting information
that can enrich our knowledge not only
about parchment itself but also about the whole
production of parchment manuscripts and their
history.
In my master’s thesis called “Defects and
damage in parchment manuscripts – an aid to
visual examination of parchment for writing
purposes” (2010), I have focused my research on
the different types of imperfections and damage,
which can be found in parchment manuscripts.
These were examined and described in chapters
referring to the ways in which they appeared in
parchment. For example, anatomical evidence
about the animal from whose skin the parchment
was made, evidence of the steps in the
process of manufacture of the parchment or the
preparation of its surface for the writing and
production of the codex. Different forms of aging
and damages of parchment as they developed
during the long history of the manuscripts were
examined and described and their potential as a
source of information discussed. In order to be
able to recognize differences in the parchments
in manuscripts it is also important to understand
the methods of their preparation, which
differed in the course of time and according to
their place of production. Practical experiments
with the manufacture of parchment can help to
verify some of the theories or hypotheses. Reconstruction
of the methods of production of the
parchment can also reveal the origin of some of
the imperfections that can later be recognized in
historical manuscripts.
During my subsequent work with parchment
manuscripts I have realized that all these specific
“signs or traits” are displaying information that
can be brought into line like stones in mosaics
which, if set up correctly, can create a more com-
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
51