Crafted leather for ancient books: the name

Ancient books carry a lot of very diverse information. Of these, we can learn how the society developed, as well as what materials were used to make certain items. How could these monuments of medieval culture survive to this day? Of course, much depended on the conditions in which the ancient volumes were kept. But the main role was played by the material from which they were made. The leather for ancient books, whose name is still used quite often by mankind in everyday life, is the main theme of this article.

Characteristics of parchment

So, what is parchment? To put it briefly, it's a finely crafted skin for ancient books. From the preceding papyrus parchment was distinguished by a higher strength, which made the books more durable. In addition, this material had a high plasticity. Books and charters from parchment could be bent and straightened again, they did not break.

The leather for ancient books had one more undeniable advantage over other materials: it was not subjected to wetting and salting. Keeping books from this material was easier and cheaper than papyrus scrolls. All this allowed the parchment to win the dominant role and completely replace the short-lived and fragile papyrus.

The origin of the word "parchment"

For the first time, leather for ancient books is mentioned in manuscripts dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. E. It was then that Ptolemy V forbade the export of papyrus to neighboring countries. During this period in Pergam (a city in Asia Minor) local authorities planned to organize one of the largest libraries. As a result of the acute shortage of papyrus, local masters took up the invention of material for scrolls. As a result of short searches, they opted for thinly skinned calves. The name of the parchment originally sounded like "charta pergamena", which meant "Pergamum sheets". After several centuries, the name "parchment" was firmly entrenched behind it.

Process of making parchment

The production of parchment is a very complex and lengthy process, which is what determined the high cost of books from this material. To begin with, the skin removed from the young animal was washed with clean water, and then it was lowered into a vat of ash sol (skinning). After a certain period of time, the skin was removed from the solution and dried out from the sunlight, but necessarily in the wind. Degreased the prepared in this way the skin with chalk, rubbing it into the surface of the material. After that, the skin was scraped and pimpled for a long time.

The quality of the parchment depended on where it was made. The cheaper leather was for the ancient books, made in the southern regions. They carefully processed only the inner (meat) part of the skin, as a result of which one side was covered with bristles. In the north of Europe, the skins of parchment underwent double-sided processing, it was white and smooth on both sides, and therefore it cost several times more expensive.

What they wrote on parchment

In books and documents made of parchment, records were made with feathers: goose, swan or peacock. The ink was very diverse. The strongest were those that were prepared from inky nuts with the addition of gum.

A little later it became fashionable to write the text in multi-colored ink. In the 11th century, red ink was given priority, in 13, blue and green colors were added. By the middle of the 14th century, gold and silver ink was used, which were used to write the title lines and "holy names" in the gospel and the psalter.