Saint Catherine of Alexandria holds a girdle book.An open girdle book. Note the tied knot used for easy holding and the relatively small size of the book itself.
Girdle books[1] were small portable books worn by medieval European monks, clergymen and aristocratic nobles as a popular accessory to medieval costume, between the 13th and 16th centuries.[2] They consisted of a book whose leather binding continued loose below the cover of the book in a long tapered tail with a large knot at the end which could be tucked into one's girdle or belt. The knot was usually strips of leather woven together for durability. The book hung upside down and backwards so that when swung upwards it was ready for reading. The books were normally religious: a cleric's daily Office, or for lay persons (especially women) a Book of Hours. One of the best known texts to become a girdle book is Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy, although it is the only surviving philosophical/theological girdle book.
Women especially wore the girdle book out of convenience since it was already fashionable, at least in the 15th century, to wear a girdle belt above the waistline.[3] A book secured on the girdle belt served both the utilitarian function of enabling hands-free carrying and protecting valuable books from theft and the elements. It also made a visible statement of social position, wealth and learning (or at least literacy).[4] Authoritative figures, saints or apostles like St. Jerome were often depicted holding girdle books.[5] Girdle books also appeared to be a fashionable accessory for lay women. Artistic depictions of the girdle book confirm their popularity as an accessory.[6]
Girdle books first appeared in the late 13th century and gained popularity through the 15th, sometimes becoming ostentatious jewel-encrusted presentation books, and falling out of favour late in the 16th century, when printed books had become much more common.[7] Another possible reason for their decline was the relatively small number of specialized girdle-protected texts becoming outdated with little need to replace them. In an environment of increasingly cheap printing it was simpler to replicate texts than spend time preserving individual manuscripts. The intricately constructed girdle bindings were simply impractical after a certain point.
In art
There are hundreds of artistic representations of girdle books. The Virgin Mary is shown reading one in such famous paintings as the Ghent Altarpiece and Mérode Altarpiece, and Saint Catherine reads one in the painting with Mary Magdalene by Konrad Witz. The donor reads one in Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Canon van der Paele. Their popularity in art indicates a much wider distribution and adoption of the girdle book as a binding than surviving copies suggest. But in art, books not being read tend to be carried by the folds of the cover rather than secured to the belt, and many are too large to be carried around as an accessory.
A list of 150 examples "shows the proportion of representation in painting and in sculpture [as] almost equal". However, only 23 medieval girdle books have survived in their original binding, the oldest datable example being from Kastl, Germany (ca. 1453).[8] At least part of the reason for the small number of surviving examples stems from the fact that the use of the girdle book was largely confined to a narrow area from the Netherlands to the Upper Rhine Valley.[9]
Totentanz, Death comes for a monk, with a book in his belt.
Construction
German lady's girdle book of 1540
Girdle books were a variant on other forms of medieval book-binding in which the leather or cloth continued loose beyond the edges of the hard cover. Especially for small personal books like the Book of Hours, the leather often extended sideways, which gave extra protection for the book when not in use. The loose edges could be wrapped round, and often buckles or laces enabled the book to be securely closed. In addition, when reading, the book could be held from outside the cover, so that the clean inside surface of the leather, rather than the thumbs of the reader, touched the pages. This stopped the pages acquiring the dirty patches in the lower margins that many medieval books have. These too are often shown in art, although it is noticeable that readers are often not making full use of the protective way of holding the book.
A girdle book from Nuremberg from 1471
The knot used for the handle was a Turk's head knot, so named for similar appearance to the turbans worn by medieval Muslims of the Turkish Empire. Sometimes the girdle book had a hook that fastened to the belt; "a hinge connected the hook to the flap of the binding, allowing maximal movement of the book while it was still attached."
Many girdle books were unadorned; however, there are also many that have brass corner pieces, carvings, awl punctures, artisan clasps, and possibly a family crest or other mark on the front. Given the security afforded by carrying the book around, it was less risky to add decoration and gilding to a book less easily stolen than a shelved manuscript. Additionally, ornate metal clasps and hinges were more durable than woven leather or cloth bindings that wore out more quickly from heavy use.
Variations
Although not strictly girdle books, several other types of portable books were in use during the same time period.[10] Some larger books had rings attached to the standard binding so a cord could be slipped through them and wrapped around the waist. Other books were small enough that they could be worn around the neck. A small chain looped through a ring or two at the top of the binding was all that was necessary to make it portable. Finally, a fourth type of portable book was the vade mecum (go with me), consisting of a booklet or folded sheets that contained an almanac or medical information and could be suspended from a belt. The text on a vade mecum would be arranged in such a way as to be legible as someone unfolded the parchment, rather than having to constantly reorient the sheets.[11]
According to The Medieval Girdle Book Project:
Containers and protective enclosures for books have been in use since long before the Middle Ages; the clay pots housing the Dead Sea Scrolls come to mind as do the leather cylinders used to store scrolls and clay tablets in the library at Alexandria and others, and the cumdachs used by Irish monks to carry their precious manuscripts and prayer books from place to place, possibly even to Iceland, which they reached as early as 700 AD.
Lack of literature
Despite their significant representation in art depicting medieval clergy, there is a scarcity of literature outside of small communities seeking to recreate them. A wide variety of craft books cover the creation of modern girdle books.[12] Many amateur historians have created more technical overviews of "historically accurate" girdle books.[13] However, being such a specialized technique, the girdle book lacks the attention given to more popular medieval binding methods in the enthusiast community
Notable exceptions are the collaboration between Margit Smith of the University of San Diego and Jim Bloxam of Cambridge University Library and Smith's monograph. [14] Their project seeks to "[bring] the girdle book to the attention of professionals working with books as librarians, curators, teachers, book dealers and collectors, and hand bookbinders, may increase appreciation of a book format, which, though small in size, has some importance, but is now almost forgotten."[15]
Also, many more books were bound not as girdle books but as similarly protected chemise covered books. Chemise covered books were often larger and designed for comfortable, stationary reading.[16]
Smith, Margit J. The medieval girdle book: A constant companion. Care and conservation of manuscripts 14: Proceedings of the fourteenth international seminar held at the University of Copenhagen, 17th-19th October 2012; Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press, 2014.
Related Research Articles
Jan van Eyck was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. According to Vasari and other art historians including Ernst Gombrich, he invented oil painting, though most now regard that claim as an oversimplification.
The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres, the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.
The dust jacket of a book is the detachable outer cover, usually made of paper and printed with text and illustrations. This outer cover has folded flaps that hold it to the front and back book covers.
Early Netherlandish painting, is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many scholars extend it to the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568–Max J. Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Italian Renaissance, but the early period is seen as an independent artistic evolution, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy. Beginning in the 1490s, as increasing numbers of Netherlandish and other Northern painters traveled to Italy, Renaissance ideals and painting styles were incorporated into northern painting. As a result, Early Netherlandish painters are often categorised as belonging to both the Northern Renaissance and the Late or International Gothic.
A belt, especially if a cord or rope, is called a girdle if it is worn as part of Christian liturgical vestments, or in certain historical, literary or sports contexts.
A cumdach or book shrine is an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics. They are typically later than the book they contain, often by several centuries. In most surviving examples the book comes from the peak age of Irish monasticism before 800, and the extant cumdachs date from after 1000, although it is clear the form dates from considerably earlier. The majority are of Irish origin, with most surviving examples now in the National Museum of Ireland (NMI).
A treasure binding or jewelled bookbinding is a luxurious book cover using metalwork in gold or silver, jewels, or ivory, perhaps in addition to more usual bookbinding material for book-covers such as leather, velvet, or other cloth. The actual bookbinding technique is the same as for other medieval books, with the folios, normally of vellum, stitched together and bound to wooden cover boards. The metal furnishings of the treasure binding are then fixed, normally by tacks, onto these boards. Treasure bindings appear to have existed from at least Late Antiquity, though there are no surviving examples from so early, and Early Medieval examples are very rare. They were less used by the end of the Middle Ages, but a few continued to be produced in the West even up to the present day, and many more in areas where Eastern Orthodoxy predominated. The bindings were mainly used on grand illuminated manuscripts, especially gospel books designed for the altar and use in church services, rather than study in the library.
The Stowe Missal, which is, strictly speaking, a sacramentary rather than a missal, is a small Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Old Irish in the late eighth or early ninth century, probably after 792. In the mid-11th century it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery in County Tipperary, Ireland. Between 1026 and 1033 the manuscript was encased within a protective cumdach, which was refurbished and embellished a number of times in the late medieval period, in particular before 1381, the year of death of Pilib O'Ceinneidigh, Lord of Ormond, who then had possession of the shrine.
The Faddan More Psalter is an early medieval Christian psalter or text of the book of Psalms, discovered in a peat bog in July 2006, in the townland of Faddan More in north County Tipperary, Ireland. The manuscript was probably written in about 800 CE in one of a number of monasteries in the area. After several years of conservation work, the psalter went on display at the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology in Kildare Street, Dublin in June 2011.
Fashion in the period 1500–1550 in Europe is marked by very thick, big and voluminous clothing worn in an abundance of layers. Contrasting fabrics, slashes, embroidery, applied trims, and other forms of surface ornamentation became prominent. The tall, narrow lines of the late Medieval period were replaced with a wide silhouette, conical for women with breadth at the hips and broadly square for men with width at the shoulders. Sleeves were a center of attention, and were puffed, slashed, cuffed, and turned back to reveal contrasting linings.
Coptic binding or Coptic sewing comprises methods of bookbinding employed by early Christians in Egypt, the Copts, and used from as early as the 2nd century AD to the 11th century. The term is also used to describe modern bindings sewn in the same style.
Fashion in fourteenth-century Europe was marked by the beginning of a period of experimentation with different forms of clothing. Costume historian James Laver suggests that the mid-14th century marks the emergence of recognizable "fashion" in clothing, in which Fernand Braudel concurs. The draped garments and straight seams of previous centuries were replaced by curved seams and the beginnings of tailoring, which allowed clothing to more closely fit the human form. Also, the use of lacing and buttons allowed a more snug fit to clothing.
Twelfth century European fashion was simple in cut and differed only in details from the clothing of the preceding centuries, starting to become tighter and more similar for men and women as the century went on, which would continue in the 13th century. Men wore knee-length tunics for most activities, and men of the upper classes wore long tunics, with hose and mantle or cloaks. Women wore long tunics or gowns. A close fit to the body, full skirts, and long flaring sleeves were characteristic of upper-class fashion for both men and women.
Anglo-Saxon dress refers to the clothing and accessories worn by the Anglo-Saxons from the middle of the fifth century to the eleventh century. Archaeological finds in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have provided the best source of information on Anglo-Saxon costume. It is possible to reconstruct Anglo-Saxon dress using archaeological evidence combined with Anglo-Saxon and European art, writing and literature of the period. Archaeological finds have both supported and contradicted the characteristic Anglo-Saxon costume as illustrated and described by these contemporary sources.
The Medieval period in England is usually classified as the time between the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance, roughly the years AD 410–1485. For various peoples living in England, the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Danes, Normans and Britons, clothing in the medieval era differed widely for men and women as well as for different classes in the social hierarchy. The general styles of Early medieval European dress were shared in England. In the later part of the period, men's clothing changed much more rapidly than women's styles. Clothes were very expensive and both the men and women of lower social classes continued also divided social classes by regulating the colors and styles these various ranks were permitted to wear. In the early Middle Ages, clothing was typically simple and, particularly in the case of lower-class peoples, served only basic utilitarian functions such as modesty and protection from the elements. As time went on the advent of more advanced textile techniques and increased international relations, clothing gradually got more and more intricate and elegant, even with those under the wealthy classes, up into the renaissance.
Bookbinding is the process of building a book of codex manuscripts from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers along an edge with a thick needle and strong thread. One can also use loose-leaf rings, binding posts, twin-loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs, but they last for a shorter time. Next, one encloses the bound stack of paper in a cover. Finally, one places an attractive cover onto the boards, and features the publisher's information and artistic decorations.
Book rebinding is the renewal or replacement of the cover of a book. Typically, this requires restitching or renewal of the glue which holds the pages in place.
The Dresden Triptych is a very small hinged-triptych altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It consists of five individual panel paintings: a central inner panel, and two double-sided wings. It is signed and dated 1437, and in a permanent collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, with the panels still in their original frames. The only extant triptych attributed to van Eyck, and the only non-portrait signed with his personal motto, ALC IXH XAN, the triptych can be placed at the midpoint of his known works. It echoes a number of the motifs of his earlier works while marking an advancement in his ability in handling depth of space, and establishes iconographic elements of Marian portraiture that were to become widespread by the latter half of the 15th century. Elisabeth Dhanens describes it as "the most charming, delicate and appealing work by Jan van Eyck that has survived".
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele is a large oil-on-oak panel painting completed around 1434–1436 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It shows the painting's donor, Joris van der Paele, within an apparition of saints. The Virgin Mary is enthroned at the centre of the semicircular space, which most likely represents a church interior, with the Christ Child on her lap. St. Donatian stands to her right, Saint George—the donor's name saint—to her left. The panel was commissioned by van der Paele as an altarpiece. He was then a wealthy clergyman from Bruges, but elderly and gravely ill, and intended the work as his memorial.
The Lindau Gospels is an illuminated manuscript in the Morgan Library in New York, which is important for its illuminated text, but still more so for its treasure binding, or metalwork covers, which are of different periods. The oldest element of the book is what is now the back cover, which was probably produced in the later 8th century in modern Austria, but in the context of missionary settlements from Britain or Ireland, as the style is that of the Insular art of the British Isles. The upper cover is late Carolingian work of about 880, and the text of the gospel book itself was written and decorated at the Abbey of Saint Gall around the same time, or slightly later.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
