Szirmai, John - The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding

10.2 BOOKBLOCK ATTACHMENT BY PRIMARY TACKETING
Tacketing appears to be one of the most ancient methods for joining die leaves of a quire or
attaching them to the covering material: it was the basic construction of the very first singlequire
codex (see the Nag Hammadi codices, Figures 1.2 and 1.3). We meet it again both in
the Byzantine and Western binding traditions as 'quire tacketing', the temporary joining of
the leaves of a quire before they reach the binder (see section 7.4, Figure 7.15; sections 8.3
and 9.4). Tackets usually consist of loosely rolled parchment strips but may be made of
leather lacing or thread; the two ends usually pass from the centrefold through two holes
and are knotted but more often twisted togedier; twisting may be on the inside or outside a
quire. Tackets of sufficient length can be used for joining two or three quires, representing
the simplest possible binding structure.
An early example of die use of tackets occurs in one of the Fulda limp bindings,
namely Basle UB MS F.V.37, which seems to have been written in the second half of the
tenth century. The volume contains live quires (188 x 150 mm) with texts of Isidorus; its
title 'Planctus Isidoři' in a fifteenth-c en t ury hand is written on the upper cover (Figure
10.1). The back of the limp parchment covering shows knotted tackets of thick parchment
(?) strips and two different exterior supports, one a piece of thick, white chamois leather at
the head and another of folded parchment at the tail. Closer examination has revealed that
two different mediods of racketing were used at the head and a third one at the tail (Figure
10.2), There are several redundant holes in the centrefolds at the head region, none at the
tail.
Figure 10.1
132 mm).
Limp parchment binding with lackering onto exlerior supports (Hasle UB MS F.V.37, s, x, 182 x