Szirmai, John - The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding

Figure 2.2 Spine of the sixth-century Codex D (Ann Arbor MI, Michigan UL MS 167; from Lamacraft 1939
pi. Vd).
sewing stations was recorded for several of the multi-quire parchment codices of the
Geneva Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, for example, Bodmer P. VI (Kasser 1960), P. XVI
(Kasser 1961a), P. XIX (Kasser 1962b) and P. XXII (Kasser 1964). The examples of fold
patterns assembled in Figure 2.3 have three striking features: the varying number and disposition
of sewing stations and the prevalence of double thread in the centrefolds. The
latter may be restricted to the first and last quires (a sound measure to counter the strain on
the joint region) or may be taken through the whole bookblock. How these sewings actually
had been worked remains an intriguing question, particularly as often several sewings
appear to be feasible for the same pattern. This shall be illustrated in the most simple
sewing, which is shown in Figure 2.3[c] and based on Codex C. The bookblock might have
been sewn with a single thread using one needle, extending sewing [k] in Figure 2.1 by an
intermediate sewing station. Figure 2.4[a] shows the sewing beginning with a free end of
the thread along the spinefold to anchor the first links; the thread then moves back and
forth in the consecutive quires. Only one of the threads forms a link when passing the intermediate
sewing station B, in order to keep the number of links of the chains equal at all
three sewing stations. The other possible sewing (Figure 2.4[b]) employs a thread needled ,
at both ends (as in the basic pattern [i] in Figure 2.1); its middle portion is laid against the
spinefold of the first quire; the two needles enter die outermost sewing stations and move
alternately in opposite directions in the consecutive centrefolds. Here too, one of the
threads skips linking at the intermediate sewing station B.
The fold pattern of Codex A is even more intriguing, since Lamacraft (1939) noted
in some centrefolds aberrant stitches extending to the head or tail edge (Figure 2.3[a]); disregarding
these as possibly being only dislocated ends of a broken thread, the sewing prob-