Illuminated Manuscripts

The first books were mostly written on vellum. Vellum is a very fine form of goat or calf skin. It is an extremely durable substance which generally lasts for hundreds of years. It could take several years of the scribe's life to create a large book, like the Bible and creating the vellum needed was a labor intensive process. Hence the high cost of books at that time. Books made of these skins exhibit wide variations in texture, thickness, and tone, and almost all books exhibit a few small natural flaws in the leaves, around which the copyist skillfully worked his text. Pages made of velum were usually lighter on one side and the inner skin side was generally lighter than the outside surface.

The Chinese were the first to use paper dating back to the 2nd Century BC. It finally reached other parts of the world in the 8th century after Arabs who had contacts with China gave away the secrets of manufacturing it. The first paper was made from fibrous vegetable matter and to begin with linen and flax were preferred in the West. Later cotton was also used. Spain picked up the ball and ran with it in the 12th century and then Italy became the European center of paper making. Italy's paper factories started production in 1276 and began supplying the paper consumption of the rest of Europe: mainly Germany, France and The Netherlands. This went through the 15th century and then these countries developed their own thriving centers by 1400. So it seems that paper replaced velum in the last half of the 1400's and the use of velum was almost over.

Art materials were hard to come by back in those days and those poor little scibers probably couldn't order what they needed on line, so they had to resort to using natural quills that they plucked from reluctant geese, and other larger species such as turkeys or possibly crows. Later on, iron pens came into use.

Inks came mainly in two forms: (1) an iron gall mixture that had an acidic factor that etched into the velum and could not be erased. (2) common lampblack with a fixing agen like oil or water. It was brown and didn't always take well to the vellum (if the weather was humid it might flake off). It was pretty permanent and examples using this ink are readable today.

Colors were added using inks and oil colors. These were reserved for royalty and the elite rulers of the church. Gold accents were added by using either real gold leafing or gold impregnated inks. Gold added an elegant, distinctive finishing touch to the work and was mostly used on the large initial focal point letter.

Most of the Western world's early books are of a spiritual or religious nature with corresponding titles such as "Age of Faith". As a result most of the surviving mansuscripts are Bibles, Psalms, Breviaries and Book of Hours. Rare examples of surviving books actually have the name of the copyist and the year of their making. Experts can pretty accurately attribute various manuscripts to a city or region and calculate their period to within a generation or so.

Bibles and other Sacred books were copied by monastic monks in small cubicles set up in the cloisters of cathedrals and other monasterial buildings, mainly because of the extreme popularity of these hand copied books. It is said that the copyists repeatedly spoke the words that they were writing aloud as they wrote them. Contractions in the words that they were copying sometimes led to errors and this audible speaking practice helped to identify the correct word. Verbalizing was believed to help to glean Divine wisdom directly from the word of God.

In 1455 movable type was introduced and the production of manuscripts was to be changed forever. One generation is all that it took to bring in the printing press, a revolutionary, cost effective solution to book-printing needs. This ushered in an educational revolution that literally changed society forever.

Handwritten manuscripts of a religious nature were produced in Paris until about 1540, thanks to the scribes' guilds. Spain was the final holdout and cloistered monks continued their handwritten works into the 1700's. Unemployed scribes in the 1400's found employment as artisans adding handpainted initial letters and other decorations to the printed texts. It seems that the art of the hand written book was gone forever.

People have been collecting old manuscripts for centuries. Most of these precious books have been destroyed in wars or even just neglect. It's scary to think of how many were just thrown out with the garbage. Since intact books are rare, most collectors are left with individual pages or leaves. The qualities that a collector looks for when shopping for a leaf are: overall appearance, condition, and rarity. Collectors tend to prefer the more ornate or artistic pages and these tend to be pricey. Bible leafs are pretty common in today's market, followed by Classical Lation author's works. The hardest to find manuscript leaves are from books on science, astronomy, alchemy and technology.

It seems to be a popular trend to use old manuscript leaves for interior decorating purposes. It's not unusual to see them matted and framed under glass in almost any room in a home. If you decide to do this, be sure to use archival matting and backing materials along with uv screening glass to protect the leaf from light damage. It would also be wise to hang them away from heating vents and any wall that is exposed to sun light. These illuminated manuscript leaves can be a beautiful addition to any decor.