Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin (rather than the skin of other animals), [1] or simply by being of a higher quality. [2] Vellum is prepared for writing and printing on single pages, scrolls, and codices (books).
Modern scholars and experts often prefer to use the broader term "membrane", which avoids the need to draw a distinction between vellum and parchment. [2] [3] : 9–10 It may be very hard to determine the animal species involved (let alone its age) without detailed scientific analysis. [4]
Vellum is generally smooth and durable, but there are great variations in its texture which are affected by the way it is made and the quality of the skin. The making involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame (a "herse"), and scraping of the skin with a crescent-shaped knife (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"). To create tension, the process goes back and forth between scraping, wetting and drying. Scratching the surface with pumice, and treating with lime or chalk to make it suitable for writing or printing ink can create a final look. [1]
Modern "paper vellum" is made of plant cellulose fibers and gets its name from its similar usage to actual vellum, as well as its high quality. It is used for a variety of purposes including tracing, technical drawings, plans and blueprints. Tracing paper is essentially the same thing, however the quality level differs, sometimes greatly. [5] [6] [7]
Though Christopher de Hamel, an expert on medieval manuscripts, writes that "for most purposes the words parchment and vellum are interchangeable", [8] a number of distinctions have been made in the past and present.
The word "vellum" is borrowed from Old French vélin 'calfskin', derived in turn from the Latin word vitulinum 'made from calf'. [9] However, in Europe, from Roman times, the word was used for the best quality of prepared skin, regardless of the animal from which the hide was obtained. Calf, sheep, and goat were all commonly used, and other animals, including pig, deer, donkey, horse, or camel were used on occasion. The best quality, "uterine vellum", [10] was said to be made from the skins of stillborn or unborn animals, although the term was also applied to fine quality skins made from young animals. [2] However, there has long been much blurring of the boundaries between these terms. In 1519, William Horman could write in his Vulgaria: "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan." [11] Writing in 1936, Lee Ustick explained that:
To-day the distinction, among collectors of manuscripts, is that vellum is a highly refined form of skin, parchment a cruder form, usually thick, harsh, less highly polished than vellum, but with no distinction between skin of calf, or sheep, or of goat. [12]
French sources, closer to the original etymology, tend to define velin as from calf only, while the British Standards Institution defines parchment as made from the split skin of several species, and vellum from the unsplit skin. [13] In the usage of modern practitioners of the artistic crafts of writing, illuminating, lettering, and bookbinding, "vellum" is normally reserved for calfskin, while any other skin is called "parchment". [14]
Vellum allows some light to pass through it. It is made from the skin of a young animal. The skin is washed with water and lime (calcium hydroxide), and then soaked in lime for several days to soften and remove the hair. [15] Once clear, the two sides of the skin are distinct: the body side and the hairy side. The "inside body side" of the skin is usually the lighter and more refined of the two. The hair follicles may be visible on the outer side, together with any scars from when the animal was alive. The membrane can also show the pattern of the animal's vein network called the "veining" of the sheet. [16]
The makers remove any remaining hair ("scudding") and dry the skin by attaching it to a frame (a "herse"). [3] : 11 They attach the skin at points around the edge with cords and wrap the part next to these points around a pebble (a "pippin"). [3] : 11 They then use a crescent shaped knife, (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"), to clean off any remaining hairs.
The makers thoroughly clean the skin and process it into sheets once it is completely dry. They can extract many sheets from the piece of skin. The number of sheets depends on the size of the skin and the required length and breadth of each individual sheet. For example, the average calfskin could provide roughly three and a half medium sheets of writing material. The makers can double it when they fold the skin into two conjoined leaves, also known as a bifolium. Historians have found evidence of manuscripts where the scribe wrote down the medieval instructions now followed by modern membrane makers. [17] The makers rubbed them with a round, flat object ("pouncing") to ensure that the ink would adhere to the surface. [16] Even so, ink would gradually flake off of the membrane, especially if it was used in a scroll that was frequently rolled and unrolled.
Once the vellum is prepared, traditionally a quire is formed of a group of several sheets. Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham point out, in their Introduction to Manuscript Studies, that "the quire was the scribe's basic writing unit throughout the Middle Ages". [3] : 14 Guidelines are then made on the membrane. They note "'pricking' is the process of making holes in a sheet of parchment (or membrane) in preparation of its ruling. The lines were then made by ruling between the prick marks ...The process of entering ruled lines on the page to serve as a guide for entering text. Most manuscripts were ruled with horizontal lines that served as the baselines on which the text was entered and with vertical bounding lines that marked the boundaries of the columns". [3] : 15–17
Most of the finer sort of medieval manuscripts, whether illuminated or not, were written on vellum. Some Gandhāran Buddhist texts were written on vellum, and all Sifrei Torah (Hebrew: ספר תורה Sefer Torah; plural: ספרי תורה, Sifrei Torah) are written on kosher klaf or vellum.
A quarter of the 180-copy edition of Johannes Gutenberg's first Bible printed in 1455 with movable type was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book. Paper was used for most book-printing, as it was cheaper and easier to process through a printing press and to bind. The twelfth-century Winchester Bible was also written on approximately 250 calfskins.
In art, vellum was used for paintings, especially if they needed to be sent long distances, before canvas became widely used in about 1500, and continued to be used for drawings, and watercolours. Old master prints were sometimes printed on vellum, especially for presentation copies, until at least the seventeenth century.
Limp vellum or limp-parchment bindings were used frequently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and were sometimes gilt but were also often not embellished. In later centuries vellum has been more commonly used like leather, that is, as the covering for stiff board bindings. Vellum can be stained virtually any color but seldom is, as a great part of its beauty and appeal rests in its faint grain and hair markings, as well as its warmth and simplicity.
Lasting in excess of 1,000 years—for example, Pastoral Care (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 504), dates from about 600 and is in excellent condition—animal vellum can be far more durable than paper. For this reason, many important documents are written on animal vellum, such as diplomas. Referring to a diploma as a "sheepskin" alludes to the time when diplomas were written on vellum made from animal hides.
British Acts of Parliament are still printed on vellum for archival purposes, [18] as are those of the Republic of Ireland. [19] In February 2016, the UK House of Lords announced that legislation would be printed on archival paper instead of the traditional vellum from April 2016. [20] However, Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock intervened by agreeing to fund the continued use of vellum from the Cabinet Office budget. [21] On 2017, the House of Commons Commission agreed that it would provide front and back vellum covers for record copies of Acts. [22]
Today, because of low demand and complicated manufacturing process, animal vellum is expensive and hard to find. [23] The only UK company still producing traditional parchment and vellum is William Cowley (established 1870), which is based in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. A modern imitation is made of cotton. Known as paper vellum, this material is considerably cheaper than animal vellum and can be found in most art and drafting supply stores. Some brands of writing paper and other sorts of paper use the term "vellum" to suggest quality.
Vellum is still used for Jewish scrolls, of the Torah in particular, for luxury bookbinding, memorial books, and for various documents in calligraphy. It is also used on instruments such as the banjo and the bodhran, although synthetic skins are available for these instruments and have become more commonly used.
The Catholic Church still issues its decrees and diplomas for its officials on vellum.
Modern imitation vellum is made from plasticized rag cotton or fibers from interior tree bark. Terms include: paper vellum, Japanese vellum, and vegetable vellum. [7] [6] Paper vellum is usually translucent and its various sizes are often used in applications where tracing is required, such as architectural plans. Its dimensions are more stable than a linen or paper sheet, which is frequently critical in the development of large scaled drawings such as blueprints. Paper vellum has also become extremely important in hand or chemical reproduction technology for dissemination of plan copies. Like a high-quality traditional vellum, paper vellum could be produced thin enough to be virtually transparent to strong light, enabling a source drawing to be used directly in the reproduction of field-used drawings. [24]
Vellum is ideally stored in a stable environment with constant temperature and 30% (± 5%) relative humidity. If vellum is stored in an environment with less than 11% relative humidity, it becomes fragile, and vulnerable to mechanical stresses. However, if it is stored in an environment with greater than 40% relative humidity, it becomes vulnerable to gelation and to mould or fungus growth. [25] The optimal relative humidity for proper storage of vellum does not overlap that of paper, which poses a challenge for libraries. [26] The optimal temperature for the keeping of vellum is approximately 20 °C (68 °F). [27]
Acts of Parliament dating back to 1497 recorded on vellum are currently held in the House of Lords Public Record Office
Once a Bill has been passed by both Houses, the Taoiseach presents a vellum copy of the Bill, prepared in the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas to the President for signature and promulgation as law.
Mr Hancock told The Daily Telegraph: 'Recording our laws on vellum is a millennium long tradition, and surprisingly cost effective. While the world around us constantly changes, we should safeguard some of our great traditions and not let the use of vellum die out.'
The codex was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term "codex" is now reserved for older manuscript books, which mostly used sheets of vellum, parchment, or papyrus, rather than paper.
A manuscript was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include any written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same.
In textual studies, a palimpsest is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so, in the interest of economy, a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture, archaeology and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another; for example, a monumental brass the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved.
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves. The generic term animal membrane is sometimes used by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum.
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds.
A hide or skin is an animal skin treated for human use. The word "hide" is related to the German word Haut, which means skin. The industry defines hides as "skins" of large animals e.g. cow, buffalo; while skins refer to "skins" of smaller animals: goat, sheep, deer, pig, fish, alligator, snake, etc. Common commercial hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, buckskin, alligator skin and snake skin. All are used for shoes, clothes, leather bags, belts, or other fashion accessories. Leather is also used in cars, upholstery, interior decorating, horse tack and harnesses. Skins are sometimes still gathered from hunting and processed at a domestic or artisanal level but most leather making is now industrialized and large-scale. Various tannins are used for this purpose. Hides are also used as processed chews for dogs or other pets.
A scroll, also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
The history of books starts with the development of writing, and various other inventions such as paper and printing, and continues through to the modern-day business of book printing. The earliest knowledge society has on the history of books actually predates what would conventionally be called "books" today and begins with tablets, scrolls, and sheets of papyrus. The current format that we consider to be books, with separate sheets fastened together rather than a scroll, is called a codex. Then hand-bound, expensive, and elaborate manuscripts appeared in codex form. These gave way to press-printed volumes and eventually led to the mass-printed volumes prevalent today. Contemporary books may even have no physical presence with the advent of the e-book. The book also became more accessible to the disabled with the advent of Braille and audiobook.
Klaf or Qelaf is the designation given a particular piece of skin. The Talmudic definition includes both the form of the skin and the way it is processed, in particular, that it must be tanned. Since the innovative ruling of Rabbeinu Tam it is primarily used to refer to parchment or vellum. It is one of the materials upon which a sofer writes certain Jewish liturgical and ritual documents.
Tracing paper is paper made to have low opacity, allowing light to pass through. Its origins date back to at least the 1300s, when it was used by artists of the Italian Renaissance. In the 1880s, tracing paper was produced en masse, used by architects, design engineers, and artists. Tracing paper was key in creating drawings that could be copied precisely using the diazo copy process. It then found many other uses. The original use for drawing and tracing was largely superseded by technologies that do not require diazo copying or manual copying of drawings.
Goldbeater's skin is the processed outer membrane of the intestine of an animal, typically cattle, which is valued for its strength against tearing. The term derives from its traditional use as durable layers interleaved between sheets of gold stock during the process of making gold leaf by goldbeating, as a batch process producing many "leaves" at the same time. In the early modern production of airships, application of its high strength-to-weight ratio and reliability were crucial for building at least the largest examples.
The conservation and restoration of parchment constitutes the care and treatment of parchment materials which have cultural and historical significance. Typically undertaken by professional book and document conservators, this process can include preventive measures which protect against future deterioration as well as specific treatments to alleviate changes already caused by agents of deterioration.
The conservation and restoration of illuminated manuscripts is the care and treatment of illuminated manuscripts which have cultural and historical significance so that they may be viewed, read, and studied now and in the future. It is a specialty case of the conservation and restoration of parchment within the field of conservation and restoration of books, manuscripts, documents and ephemera.
Calfskin or calf leather is a leather or membrane produced from the hide of a calf, or juvenile domestic cattle. Calfskin is particularly valuable because of its softness and fine grain, as well as durability. It is commonly used for high-quality clothing, shoes, wallets, and similar products, as well as traditional leather bookbindings. In these contexts, just "calf" is commonly used. Fine calfskin is one of the skins used for vellum and parchment manuscripts.
A writing material, also called a writing medium, is a surface that can be written on with suitable instruments, or used for symbolic or representational drawings. Building materials on which writings or drawings are produced are not included. The gross characterization of writing materials is by the material constituting the writing surface and the number, size, usage, and storage configuration of multiple surfaces into a single object. Writing materials are often paired with specific types of writing instruments. Other important attributes of writing material are its reusability, permanence, and resistance to fraudulent misuse.
Paper is a thin nonwoven material traditionally made from a combination of milled plant and textile fibres. The first paper-like plant-based writing sheet was papyrus in Egypt, but the first true papermaking process was documented in China during the Eastern Han period, traditionally attributed to the court official Cai Lun. This plant-puree conglomerate produced by pulp mills and paper mills was used for writing, drawing, and money. During the 8th century, Chinese paper making spread to the Islamic world, replacing papyrus. By the 11th century, papermaking was brought to Europe, where it replaced animal-skin-based parchment and wood panels. By the 13th century, papermaking was refined with paper mills using waterwheels in Spain. Later improvements to the papermaking process came in 19th century Europe with the invention of wood-based papers.
Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. 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.
A scroll is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. The history of scrolls dates back to ancient Egypt. In most ancient literate cultures scrolls were the earliest format for longer documents written in ink or paint on a flexible background, preceding bound books; rigid media such as clay tablets were also used but had many disadvantages in comparison. For most purposes scrolls have long been superseded by the codex book format, but they are still produced for some ceremonial or religious purposes, notably for the Jewish Torah scroll for use in synagogues.
Kidskin or kid leather is a type of soft, thin leather that is traditionally used for gloves. It is widely used for other fashion purposes such as footwear and clothing. Kidskin is traditionally made from goatskin – more specifically, the skin of young goats, although equivalent leathers such as lambskin and chickenskin give the same effect.
Binding waste is damaged, misprinted, or surplus paper or parchment reused in bookbinding. Whether as whole sheets or fragments, these may be used as the exterior binding, as the endpapers, or as a reinforcement beneath the spine.