BPG Parchment

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This page is currently being reorganized, edited, and expanded into six new pages. Most of the original content from the Paper Conservation Catalog been relocated and distributed between the following pages: BPG Parchment Examination and Documentation, BPG Parchment Condition Problems, BPG Parchment Conservation Treatment, BPG Parchment Housing and Storage, and BPG Parchment Historic Treatment Methods and Materials.

Original Compilers: Walter Newman, Abigail Quandt
For a full list of the original contributors to this page, see the section below on History of This Page below.
Wiki Compilers: Cathie Magee, Abigail Quandt, Rebecca Smyrl
Wiki Contributors: Emily Williams, your name could be here

Copyright 2025. The AIC Wiki is a publication of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC). It is published as a convenience for the members of AIC. Publication does not endorse nor recommend any treatments, methods, or techniques described herein. Information on researching with and citing the wiki can be found on the Reference and Bibliography Protocols page.

Cite this page:

American Institute for Conservation (AIC). "BPG Parchment." AIC Wiki. May 20, 2025. https://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/BPG_Parchment.

Introduction to Parchment

This series of pages focuses primarily on the history, conservation, and storage of European parchment artifacts to include single page documents, scrolls, rolls, and book blocks. See the BPG Parchment Bookbinding page for information on parchment book covers and structural components.

The long history of animal membrane used for manuscript substrates in North Africa and Western Asia is addressed elsewhere. See BPG Western African Books and Manuscripts, BPG Ethiopian Bindings, and BPG Bookbinding Traditions by Region or Culture>Islamic for more.

Terminology

Parchment is made from the skins of small domesticated animals such as calves, sheep, and goats that are cleaned of their hair and flesh and then dried under tension on a frame. The English word parchment comes from the French word parchemin ("parchment, n." 2022) which ultimately derives from the name of Pergamon, a city in modern day Türkiye and a center for parchment production in the ancient world ("Pergamon" 2022). This material is also referred to as vellum, from the French word vellin derived from vel for veal ("vellum, n." 2022) (alternatively, from the Latin word vitulus and the French word veau for calf (Reed?)). Vellum was often used to indicate a very fine quality of parchment which was preferred for painting and illumination, or specifically referring to parchment made of calfskin. However, the two words have come to be used interchangeably without any clear distinction between animal type or method of preparation. Since parchment is presently the term preferred by a large number of conservators, scientists, and scholars working both in the U.S. and abroad, it has therefore been exclusively adopted for use here except where direct quotations use vellum.

The word membrane is also used in European literature to refer to a parchment substrate, but will not be used within this Wiki unless in a direct quotation.

[Introduction references | top]

Parchment Manufacture

Though both produced from animal skins, parchment differs from leather in appearance, production, physical structure, etc. Geraty (2019) points out the two most essential differences between the two materials: 1) leather is tanned, whereas parchment is not; 2) parchment is dried under tension, which is not a requirement for leather.

To summarize generally from Haines (2006, 198-199), skins are washed in cold, clean water for two days, and then immersed in slaked lime for about eight days to loosen the hair and epidermis. Once removed from the bath, the skins are laid on a wooden board or beam and scraped clean of hair, epidermis, fat, muscle, and loose flesh. Then the skins are again soaked in lime for several days, and then washed in water for about two days. Essential to the formation of parchment (versus raw hide) is drying the skins under tension. Each skin is suspended within a wooden frame via flexible supports to allow for shrinkage without tearing. One method has the one area of the edge of a skin is wrapped around a small stone called a pippin. A cord is tied around the wrapped pippin and then secured to the frame with an adjustable peg. Once taut but while still wet, the skin is scraped again with a crescent-shaped knife called a lunellum. The skin is retensioned on the frame throughout to keep it taut. It is left to dry in the frame in a controlled environment that prevents drying too quickly or at too high a temperature. Once dry, the skin is scraped again with a lunellum to achieve a uniform thickness overall. The surface grain may be removed also for some uses, especially writing. Then the parchment is cut from the frame and both surfaces are rubbed with pumice powder.

The different historical methods of manufacturing parchment in the West are further described in detail by several authors including Ronald Reed (1972), Hedwig Saxl, Richard Johnson, and Daniel Thompson. The studies of Jiri Vnoucek on antique methods of parchment manufacture are extremely valuable. Reed (1972) and Kennedy and Wess (2003) describe the structure of collagen fibers within parchment in detail that shall not be reproduced here.

Late Antique

Vnouček 2019; Vnouček 2020; Jiri Vnouček 2015

Byzantine

See Kireyeva 1999; Mokretsova et al. 2003.

Judaica

Parchment produced for Judaica was often made by adding bran flour during the initial soaking process, which occurred in an acidic bath rather than alkaline. The bran would ferment, increasing the acidity of the bath. (Vorst 1986; Vorst 1991)

Ancient Jewish methods of parchment manufacture usually included the application of weak tanning solutions to the skin surface, often only the surface of the hair side. This was done as a final step in the parchment making process and was perhaps intended to toughen the surface of the skin prior to writing. (See Reed 1972, Haran 1985, Haran 1991. It is unclear whether a similar process was carried out in other countries, at other times. 18th and 19th century Hebrew scrolls were written on a type of parchment called “gvil” which was supposedly made using ancient manufacturing techniques, employing some type of tanning agent. However, the thickness, dark color and soft handle of these modern skins make them seem much more like leather than their earlier ancestors. [original]

Grossman 1997. Haran 1985. Wallert 1996.

Modern

William Visscher, a parchment maker at Cowley's, stated, "If the question were asked 'Is there much difference between bookbinding parchment and vellum making in the 14th century and to-day' the flippant, and partly true answer 'not a lot' would fit," (1986, 41). While the basic methods of production have likely not changed much and remain resistant to the drive for mechanization, the shift in modern demand for parchment—even since the eighteenth century—has changed, diminishing to niche specialties. This is especially true in the digitally-dominated 21st century. The quality of available raw materials, especially industrially-farmed animal skins, has also decreased and made parchment making more difficult (Vorst 1986). Furthermore, few records of ancient parchment making practices exist, and those that do are hardly detailed enough to serve as proper guides for present-day parchmenters (Vorst 1986).

More detailed information has been written by modern parchment makers. Several manuals translated into English from the 18th through 20th centuries were recently published in Art in Translation (de La Lande 2021; Wattenbach 2021; Groot 2021; Moog 2021), but Caroline Danforth (2021) has noted the challenges of accurately translating the nuanced technical and anatomical terms. Alexis Hagadorn (2012) has examined 18th-century French texts on parchment-making and identified their various strengths.

As of Jan 2, 2025, the Journal of Paper Conservation is attempting to compile a list of current parchment makers around the globe. This is not limited to professionals producing large batches; information about anyone experimenting with producing parchment is sought. Please contact cmagee@loc.gov.

Post-Manufacture Surface Treatments

The surfaces of a finished sheet of parchment can be prepared or coated so as to make the two sides more uniform in appearance and also more receptive to inks and paints.

[copied from original BPG] Although the work could be done by the parchment maker it was probably more often carried out by scribes or artists, or their assistants. Surface preparations can include scraping with a sharp knife, smoothing and raising a soft nap with pumice, burnishing with a stone or other hard material, and dusting with French chalk. Parchment supports would also be coated with a variety of materials for different purposes. During the medieval period Byzantine artisans would apply egg white (glaire), natural oils and other materials to the parchment and then burnish it to achieve a very smooth, highly polished surface for writing and illumination (Abt and Fusco 1989, Bykova et al. 1976, Bykova 1993). Russian illustrated documents were coated with a matte white paint prior to execution. (JM) During the 19th c. parchment intended for printing could also receive a surface coating (Jenkins 1992, Smith and Bunting 1993). The particular type of surface coatings found in medieval Greek manuscripts (see above) makes the illuminations extremely susceptible to flaking, whereas the writing is rarely affected. (Although flaking would often occur relatively soon after the manuscripts were made the Greek artists never seemed to alter their technique. Instead, the miniatures would simply be painted over once the amount of paint loss was substantial enough to warrant it. AQ) In other types of medieval manuscripts, such as those produced in Italy or elsewhere by Italian craftsmen, the parchment is prepared in such a way that the hair side has a very soft, almost velvety nap while the flesh side is smooth and slick. Whether or not there was some type of surface preparation or coating on the flesh side of these skins has not been determined. Nevertheless, in these manuscripts flaking of the media (particularly the writing ink) is much more predominant on the flesh side than on the hair side. (AQ)

Parchment was surface tanned in Dead Sea Scrolls.

Whiteners added to surfaces of Syriac manuscripts.

For Byzantine parchment, folios were coated with an albuminous substance, possibly to prepare the parchment for the scribe or illuminator (Kireyeva 1999).

A French Missal created in the early 20th century by Clothilde Coulaux (Walters Art Museum W.934) was comprised of parchment leaves coated with lead white paint under the script and illuminations. This gave the parchment a very white color, but also a stiff handle and notable health and safety concerns. (Herbert 2018, 117 note 2)

Dyed Parchment

Parchment codex pages have been dyed different colors, often to heighten the effects of writing with gold ink (chrysography).

Blue Parchment

One of the most famous manuscripts with blue parchment is the Blue Quran, an early Islamic manuscript Kufic script. Porter (2018) describes the material characterization of the manuscript's sheepskin parchment, which was colored using plant-based materials containing indigotin (either indigo or woad).

Purple Parchment

Purple parchment with gold or silver script was occasionally used in deluxe western European religious texts. There are three sources for this dye, each going by different common names: Mediterranean mollusks (Tyrian purple), the Chrozophora tinctoria plant (folium), and three types of European lichen (orchil). Only a minute amount of dye was produced from a single shellfish, and Tyrian purple was more expensive. It had been thought that Tyrian purple could be distinguished from plant-based purple dyes by the presence of the element bromine. However, recent analysis by Aceto et al. (2015) detected bromine in folium and orchil; thus, the presence of bromine is not a reliable indicator of its source.

Quandt (2018) describes both late antique and early medieval European manuscripts with purple parchment leaves. Rabitsch et al. (2020) describes the analysis and treatment of purple parchment leaves of the Vienna Genesis.

Black Parchment

The parchment of some Flemish manuscripts was dyed black with iron gall ink, as seen in the Black Book of Hours at the Morgan Library (Trujillo 2020).

Parchment-Like Materials

Goldbeater's skin is animal intestine that can be used to repair parchment (Groot 2021).

In investigating the production of imitation shagreen, Vries (2021) describes how the skin is treated similarly to parchment in that it is dried under tension and is (sometimes) not tanned.

[Manufacture references | top]

Types of Parchment Artifacts

Within European collections, parchment is mainly associated with its use as a primary support for hand-written materials. Many of the earliest surviving Western European codices are written on parchment, such as the 4th century C.E. Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. Besides the codex, parchment was used in both roll and and single page formats, typically for administrative or archival purposes. It has also been used as a support for medieval illuminations, pastel paintings, and occasionally for printed materials.

The Codex and Its Folios

See (Clemens and Graham 2007)

The codex is a typical format of long-form parchment documents, which seems to have evolved around the Mediterranean at about the time of early Christianity, with the Coptic Church being the originator of both the single-quire and multi-quire codices (Szirmai 1994, 4). Szirmai acknowledges the lack of archaeological evidence surrounding the development of the codex structure as few early codices survive. He compares eleven early volumes from the 4th through 7th centuries with structural similarities before moving into the dissection of early medieval books. Boudalis (2018) examines the development of the codex structure holistically from a craft standpoint, discussing leatherwork and textile techniques generally.

Palimpsests

Palimpsests: Engel 2014, Quandt 2014.

The Archimedes Palimpsest is a famous example.

Fragments

A fragment is a piece of a parchment document that has been removed its original format, i.e. cut from a codex, roll, or single page document. A fragment can be anything from a complete bifolium down to a small scrap of a folio. Parchment fragments were cut from codices either by bookbinders to be repurposed as part of a new bookbinding as a covering material or other structural component or by collectors or booksellers to be collected or sold. Occasionally, fragments that were recycled into book parts were then later scavenged by collectors and removed from their secondary bindings. Libraries and museums frequently see fragments from all three of these scenarios: slices of folios featuring illuminations or text kept in folders, mats, or albums; in situ fragments that remain in place in their roles of reuse on or in a book (Sheppard 2000, 169); and loose fragments that retain evidence of reuse, often seen as adhesive residue, grime, folds, and holes, especially when used as book covers (see BPG Parchment Bookbinding). The retention of features of use and second use come to be extremely important evidence in fragmentology, the study of parchment fragments, which seeks to contextualize fragments or, if possible, unite them with larger pieces of their former texts. In general, the treatment of parchment fragments follows normal treatment protocols (see BPG Parchment Conservation Treatment), except for an emphasis on retaining evidence of use (Kenney 2022).

Rolls and Scrolls

Parchment objects in scroll format typically contain media on only one side and are made up of multiple pieces of parchment that are joined edge to edge with adhesive or by sewing with thread, parchment thong or sinew. This category includes a wide variety of official and private documents (contracts, deeds, wills, indentures, genealogical tables, etc.), maps, architectural drawings and garden plans. Many parchment legal documents have ribbons or ties, often with associated seals, which were laced through the folds at the bottom after they were signed in order to prevent unauthorized additions or changes. This practice sometimes obscures text or signatures but is an inherent part of the document.(LP) Parchment documents and other archival materials can be made up of a single sheet or multiple sheets; the latter are either stacked one on top of the other and joined at a single edge, or they are joined end to end to make a roll which, in many cases, would extend as much as 25 feet in length. (Membrane is the term used to describe each loose sheet of parchment used to record British official documents. The term is also used for each separate sheet of parchment forming a roll. See Guide to the Contents of the Public Record Office. vol. 1 (1963), p.206.) The sheets in these composite documents are either joined by sewing with thread, cord, ribbon, etc., or with adhesive. So as to make up the large format needed for maps, architectural plans and drawings, single sheets of parchment are often joined at the edges with adhesive to make larger supports. Routine official documents were often written in iron-gall or carbon inks, and later printed with carbon oil-based inks. Depending upon the relative importance of certain medieval documents on parchment, such as those created for a king or duke or for a wealthy religious house, they were often illuminated with various paints and gold leaf. Architectural plans and drawings from the medieval period were often executed in pen and ink, whereas maps and garden plans (which were executed on parchment up until the end of the 18th and perhaps into the 19th century) were also colored using gouache or watercolor.

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Maps and Portolan Charts

One of the most famous medieval maps on parchment is the Hereford Mappa Mundi (ca. 1300). Campbell (1987) describes the history of portolan charts in Europe from the 13th and 14th centuries. See also Westrem 2002.

• 

  Portolan chart of the Pacific coast from Mexico to northern Chile, ca 1500. Library of Congress.

Parchment Book Covers

Parchment was frequently used as a covering material for printed books and blank books throughout Europe. While fresh blank parchment was used, pages were sometimes cut out from discarded manuscripts and repurposed as book covers or other binding components. For more on this practice and for information on the wide variety of parchment-bound book structures, see BPG Parchment Bookbindings.

Parchment and Printing

In addition to manuscripts, parchment frequently served as a substrate for Incunables, or the earliest printed European books. Johannes Gutenberg printed an edition of the Ars Minor of Donatus, a popular Latin grammar book, on both paper and parchment. An unknown number of Gutenberg's famous 42 line Bible were also printed on parchment. Consumers were initially wary of the longevity of paper book blocks, and books intended to be heavily used were printed on more durable parchment. Both manuscript and typographic books on either paper or parchment could serve as exemplars for producing new copies, either by hand or print. (Needham 2015). The practice of printing on parchment continued sporadically into the 19th century (Jenkins 1992).

Etchings on parchment were produced in large numbers during the 19th century as reproduction prints, especially in England and France (see Smith and Bunting 1993, and Nineteenth Century Fine Art Prints on Parchment). Parchment was also used as a printing support by many 19th century French artists such as Buhot and others.

Parchment in Fine Art

Drawings, paintings, and prints on single sheets of parchment can be found in various sizes and formats and made with several types of media including silverpoint on prepared grounds, pen and ink, pastel, charcoal, watercolor, gouache, and graphite (rare) (Watrous 1957). 16th and 17th century Dutch and Italian artists often used parchment as a painting or drawing support. It was also used extensively for portrait miniatures, before the adoption of ivory as a painting support in the 17th century. (Gombaud and van Leeuwen 2017; Sauvage and Gombaud, 2015; Shelley 1989). Many still life and flower paintings were executed on fine parchment from at least the 17th to the 19th centuries (Borring et al. 2014).

Some early medieval manuscripts such as the Utrecht Psalter contain pen and ink drawings throughout the codex. Holcomb (2009) describes the art historical significance of this and several other highly illustrated manuscripts.

Ritual or Sacred Objects

See also: BPG Culturally Sensitive Treatment

This category includes articles made for use as part of religious observance. In Judaism, they include Torah scrolls, mezuzot, tefillin kettubot, books, and Biblical scrolls. Their conservation treatment will require an understanding of their context in Jewish life to determine the appropriateness of various treatments (Greene 1992). Certain items, such as Torah scrolls, mezuzot and tefillin, should be given to a qualified religious scribe (sofer) if it is intended they be used for religious purposes. This should be discussed with a responsible custodian or curator before treatment. [original]

Furniture

Several articles discuss the conservation of parchment components on furniture, in particular a chair designed by Carlo Bugatti (Coueignoux 2011; Kitchen et al. 1992; Munn 1989).

Parchment Artifacts References | top

Creation of Medieval Manuscripts

An in-depth description of the methods and materials used to make medieval manuscripts on parchment is beyond the scope of this page. Nevertheless, it is important to know how they were made when engaging in their conservation. This topic has been addressed by many conservators and book historians. One of the most useful and easiest to access is An Introduction to Manuscript Studies by Clemens and Graham (2007). See the relevant section in References for additional titles.

Creation of Medieval Manuscripts References | top

References

Introduction to Parchment

"parchment, n.". OED Online. December 2022. Oxford University Press. (accessed January 19, 2023).

"vellum, n.". OED Online. December 2022. Oxford University Press. (accessed January 19, 2023)

"Pergamon," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (accessed January 19, 2023).

Parchment Manufacture

Danforth, Caroline. 2021. "Art in Translation: Parchment, Parchemin, Pergament: 18th-, 19th-, and 20th Century Authors on the History and Manufacture of Parchment." Journal of Paper Conservation 22 (1–4): 81–90.

Geraty, Peter. 2019. "A Manual Approach to Stiff-Board Parchment Binding." In Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding, edited by Julia Miller, 5. Ann Arbor: Legacy Press. 125–196.

Groot, Zeger Hendrik de. 2021. "The Manufacture of Goldbeater’s Skin, Transparent Parchment, and Split Parchment." Translated by Caroline Danforth. Art in Translation 13 (4): 408–18.

Grossman, Annlinn Kruger. 1997. "The Gantse Megillah: Conservation of a 14-15th Century Parchment Esther Scroll." Book and Paper Group Annual 16: 21–32.

Hagadorn, Alexis. 2012. "Parchment making in eighteenth-century France; historical practices and the written record." Journal of the Institute of Conservation 35 (2): 165-188.

Haran, Menahem. 1985. "Bible Scrolls in Eastern and Western Jewish Communities from Qumran to the High Middle Ages." Hebrew Union College Annual 56: 21–62.

Haines, B. M. 2006. "The Manufacture of Parchment." In Conservation of Leather and Related Materials, edited by Marion Kite and Roy Thomson. London: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. 198–99.

Herbert, Lynley Anne. 2018. "A Female Artist Draws Her Sword." Journal of the Walters Art Museum 73:113–17.

Icon - The Institute of Conservation. 2021. The Identification of Shagreen - Herre de Vries | Icon Book & Paper Group.

Kennedy, Craig J., and Tim J. Wess. 2003. "The Structure of Collagen within Parchment - A Review." Restaurator 24: 81–80.

Kireyeva, Vilena. 1999. "Examination of Parchment in Byzantine Manuscripts." Restaurator 20 (1): 39–47.

La Lande, Jérôme de. 2021. "The Art of Making Parchment." Translated by Gay McAuley. Art in Translation 13 (4): 326–86.

Moog, Gerhard. 2021. "Skins and Hides for Making Parchment: An Overview of Parchment’s Histologic Features That Are Helpful When Identifying Raw Source Material." Translated by Caroline Danforth. Art in Translation 13 (4): 419–31.

Mokretsova, I. P., M. M. Naumova, V. N. Kireyeva, E. N. Dobrynina, and B. L. Fonkitch. 2003. Materials and Techniques of Byzantine Manuscripts [Materialy i Tekhnika Vizantiĭskoĭ Rukopisnoĭ Knigi]. Moscow: Indrik.

Reed, Ronald. 1972. Ancient Skins Parchments and Leathers. London-New York: Seminar Press.

Visscher, W. P. 1986. "Trends in Vellum and Parchment Making Past and Present." The New Bookbinder 6:41–47.

Vnouček, Jiří. 2005. "The Manufacture of Parchment for Writing Purposes and the Observation of the Signs of Manufacture Surviving in Old Manuscripts." Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 8: 74–92.

Vnouček, Jiří. 2015. "Production of Parchment for a Handmade Replica of the Treaty of Kiel from 1814." In Making a Replica of the Treaty of Kiel. Copenhagen Oslo: Royal Library; The Norwegian Parliament Archives. 28–41.

Vnouček, Jiří. 2019. "The Parchment of the Codex Amiatinus in the Context of Manuscript Production in Northumbria Around the End of the Seventh Century: Identification of the Animal Species and Methods of Manufacture of the Parchment as Clues to the Old Narrative?" Journal of Paper Conservation 20 (1–4): 179–204.

Vnouček, Jiří, Sarah Fiddyment, Abigail Quandt, Sophie Rabitsch, Matthew Collins, and Christa Hofmann. 2020. "The Parchment of the Vienna Genesis: Characteristics and Manufacture." In The Vienna Genesis. 35–70.

Vorst, Benjamin. 1986. "Parchment Making - Ancient and Modern." Fine Print 12 (4): 209–211, 220–221.

Vorst, Benjamin. 1991. "Mysterious Vellum." In Pergament: Geschichte, Struktur, Restaurierung, Herstellung, edited by Peter Rück, 365–70. Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke.

Wallert, Arie. 1996. "Tannins on the Parchment of the Dead Sea Scrolls." 11th Triennial Meeting, Edinburgh, Scotland 1-6 September 1996 Preprints Volume II.

Wattenbach, Wilhelm. 2021. "Parchment." Translated by Caroline Danforth and Andrew Griebeler. Art in Translation 13 (4): 387–407.

Woods, Christopher S. 2006. "The Conservation of Parchment." In Conservation of Leather and Related Materials, edited by Marion Kite and Roy Thomson. London: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. 200–224.

Types of Parchment Artifacts

Borring, Niels, Christian Balleby Jensen, and Anja Scocoza. 2014. "The Seventeenth-Century Florilegium Gottorfer Codex: Examination and Restoration of 1180 Gouache Flower Paintings on Parchment." Edited by M. J. Driscoll. Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Seminar Held at the University of Copenhagen 17th-19th October 2012, Care and Conservation of Manuscripts, 14:137–48.

Boudalis, Georgios. 2018. The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity. New York City: Bard Graduate Center.

Campbell, Tony. 1987. "Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500." In The History of Cartography, edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward, 1:371–463. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chaplin, Tracey D., Robin J. H. Clark, David Jacobs, Kristian Jensen, and Gregory D. Smith. 2005. "The Gutenberg Bibles:  Analysis of the Illuminations and Inks Using Raman Spectroscopy." Analytical Chemistry 77 (11): 3611–22.

Coueignoux, Catherine. 2011. "'X' Marks the Spot: The Conservation and Correction of a Carlo Bugatti Chair." Conservation Journal of the Victoria & Albert Museum, no. 59 (Spring).

Engel, Patricia. 2014. "Deletions in Manuscripts: Historical Sources and Physical Traces." Edited by M. J. Driscoll. Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 14: 109–36.

Gombaud, Cécile, and Idelette van Leeuwen. 2017. "Pastel Conservation and Framing at the Rijksmuseum." Journal of Paper Conservation 18 (2): 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/18680860.2017.1413816.

Greene, Virginia. 1992. "'Accessories of Holiness': Defining Jewish Sacred Objects." Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 31 (1): 31-39.

Holcomb, Melanie. 2009. Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages. Metropolitan Museum of Art; Yale University Press, New York; New Haven.

Jenkins, Penny. 1992. "Printing on Parchment or Vellum." The Paper Conservator 16:31–39.

Kenney, Kathryn. 2022. "Preserving Evidence of Use: The Conservation of a Teaching Collection of Medieval Manuscript Fragments." Guardians of Memory: Preserving the National Collection (blog). March 3, 2022.

Kitchen, John, Marion Kite, Pieter Hallebeek, and Christopher Calnan. 1992. “The Restoration of Vellum and Silk from a Bugatti Chair.” In Conservation of Leathercraft and Related Objects: Interim Symposium at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 48–50.

Munn, Jesse. 1989. "Treatment Techniques for the Vellum Covered Furniture of Carlo Bugatti." Book and Paper Group Annual 8:27–38.

Paterson, Dan. 2018. "Treatment of two vellum manuscript waste bindings and a survey of similar bindings in American research libraries." Edited by Matthew James Driscoll. Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 16: 449–65.

Pickwoad, Nicholas. 2000. "The Use of Fragments of Medieval Manuscripts in the Construction and Covering of Bindings on Printed Books." In Interpreting and collecting fragments of medieval books: Proceedings of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, 1998 eds. Linda L. Brownrigg and Margaret M. Smith, Los Altos Hills: Anderson-Lovelace, 1-20.

Needham, Paul. 2015. "Book Production on Vellum and Paper in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries." In Papier im mittelalterlichen Europa: Herstellung und Gebrauch, 247–74. Munich: De Gruyter.

Quandt, Abigail. 2014. "Preserving the Brain in the Box: The Scientific Analysis and Conservation of the Archimedes Palimpsest." Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 14:1–15.

Sauvage, Leila, and Cécile Gombaud. 2015. "Liotard’s Pastels: Techniques of an 18th-Century Pastellist." In Technology and Practice – Studying 18th Century Paintings and Art on Paper, CATS Proceedings, 31–45.

Sheppard, Jennifer M. 2000. "Medieval Binding Structures: Potential Evidence from Fragments." In Interpreting and Collecting Fragments of Medieval Books: Proceedings of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, 1998 eds. Linda L. Brownrigg and Margaret M. Smith, Los Altos Hills: Anderson-Lovelace, 167-175.

Szirmai, J. A. 1999. The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate.

Westrem, Scott D. 2002. "Making a Mappamundi: The Hereford Map." Terrae Incognitae 34 (1): 19–33.

Creation of Medieval Manuscripts

Alexander, J. J. G. 1994. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Primarily a deep dive into the circumstances and practices of individual artists and the making of well-known manuscripts. Technical information on general manuscript illumination technique is interspersed throughout. Good for those with a strong art historical background.

Casey, Denis. 2017. "How Many Cows Did It Take to Make the Book of Kells?" In An Insular Odyssey: Manuscript Culture in Early Christian Ireland and Beyond, edited by Rachel Moss, Felicity O’Mahony, and Jane Maxwell, 76–85. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

A critique and proposed alternative to Kathleen Ryan's technique (1987. "Holes and flaws in medieval Irish manuscripts." Peritia 6-7, 243-264.) for calculating the animals, land, and labor required for producing Irish manuscripts.

Clarke, Mark. 2001. "The Analysis of Medieval European Manuscripts." Reviews in Conservation 2: 3–17.

Clarke, Mark. 2004. "Anglo-Saxon Manuscript Pigments." Studies in Conservation 49 (4): 231–44.

Clemens, Raymond and Timothy Graham. 2007. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

An excellent source that describes illuminated manuscript production, visible characteristics, and types of books. Chapter 2 discusses common scribal tools, the making of ink, the practice of copying from exemplars, rubrication and initials, illumination, and the origins of common pigments. Chapter 4 covers quire assembly, binding (very generally), girdle books, and book storage. Other useful chapters cover the practices of manuscript reading and copying, paleography and scripts, and the layout of bibles and liturgical books. Many color images of making parchment, repairs, book structure, page formats, unfinished illuminations, scribal notations, marks of use and damage, etc.

De Hamel, Christopher and British Library. 2001. The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination : History and Techniques. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

The strength of this brief (88 page) book is the discussion of the social context and visual importance of manuscript illumination practices rather the one chapter with a technical description of the process, which is written from an art historical perspective. There are many color images of manuscript illuminations; a few feature contemporary images of scribes, and there are no modern depictions of the act of illuminating parchment.

Panayotova, Stella, ed. 2020. The Art & Science of Illuminated Manuscripts: A Handbook. Manuscripts in the Making (HMMIMA) 3. London ; Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers.

Analysis of pigments used in illumination throughout Europe from 600-1600 C.E.

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Bibliography

[from original BPG Parchment page.]

Abt, Jeffrey. 1985. "The Deterioration Mechanism in Byzantine Manuscript Illuminations of Greek Origin." AIC Preprints. Washington, DC., 13th Annual Meeting: 1-14.

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History of This Page

BPG Wiki
In 2009, the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) launched the AIC Wiki with funding assistance from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), a division of the National Parks Service. Along with catalogs from other specialty groups, the published Paper Conservation Catalog and the unpublished Book Conservation Catalog were transcribed into a Wiki environment. In 2017, Rebecca Smyrl reformatted this chapter by removing the legacy numbered outline format, reorganizing and renaming sections, and improving internal links. As of 2022, Cathie Magee is dividing the contents between six separate pages and updating the information and references.

Paper Conservation Catalog (print edition 1984-1994)
Prior to the creation of the AIC Conservation Wiki, this chapter was created in 1994 as Chapter 18: Parchment Treatments of the 9^th edition of the Paper Conservation Catalog, (print edition 1984-1994) by the following:

Compilers: Walter Newman, Abigail Quandt.

Contributors: Tom Albro, Frederick Bearman, Nancy Bell, Ulrike Berger, Lorraine Bigrigg, Victoria Bunting, Dorthea Burns, Tony Cains, Claire Chahine, Christopher Clarkson, Marnie Cobbs, Almuth Corbach, Ursula Dreibholz, Deborah Evetts, Andrea Giovannini, Eric Hansen, Doris Hamburg, Margaret Lawson, Michael Maggen, John Franklin Mowery, Jesse Munn, Catherine (Kitty) Nicholson, Elissa O'Loughlin, Carol Paulson, Dag-Ernst Peterson, Hugh Phibbs, Nicholas Pickwoad, Lois Price, Jane Smith, Nancy Southworth, Nathan Stolow, Donna Strahan, Hanna Szczepanowska, Jack Thompson, Nancy Turner, Dianne van der Reyden, Heather Wanser, Pamela Young Randolph.

Editorial Board: Sylvia R. Albro, Sarah Bertalan, Antoinette Dwan, Holly Krueger, Elizabeth Coombs Leslie, Catherine I. Maynor, Catherine (Kitty) Nicholson, Kimberly Schenck, Ann Seibert, Dianne van der Reyden,Terry Boone Wallis