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Article and books by Sharon Burrows
The codex became prevalent in many cultures between the 3rd to 8th Centuries. The change from rolled to folded books brought the bookbinder's craft into existence.
In the far east, the use of soft, flexible oriental paper allowed side stabbed sewing.
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Most 4th C Gnostic codices were single quire books with a cover to text attachment made with two leather thong tacket stitches.
Simple 'through the fold' sewing was developed by north African Coptic craftsmen around the 3rd C. Greek was the international language of the church, and libraries of the 3rd-6th centuries contained scroll and codex format works with papyrus, leather and vellum texts. The codex began to predominate in Christian works by the 4th C.
In the 6th C, the codex format book tradition was established throughout the Byzantine and Greek political sphere, as well as north Africa and the middle east. By the 11th C, north African libraries were in the codex format.
Coptic, Egyptian (3-6C) existing 7 - 10 C
Sheet: papyrus
Board: pasteboard, papyrus
Text Block: flat back, chain stitch (link stitch), unsupported
Cover: leather
End Band: chain stitch onto boards or stitch over core onto boards
Clasps: leather tie
Ethiopian (4 - 12 C) existing 13 - 20 CSheet - vellum, paper
Board: hide or wood
Text Block: flat back, laced
Cover: bare boards with leather case
End Band: leather braid
Clasps: leather case
Eastern Orthodox Greek (4- 10 C) existing 11 - 16 C
Sheet: papyrus, vellum, or paper
Board: wood
Text block: round shoulder, seated board
Cover: leather
End Band: sitched over core, carried onto board
Greece and Near East Including Arabic, to 19 C
Sheet: vellum or paper
Board: wood or limp vellum; Arab - pasteboard
Text Block: Byzantine stitch bridles into boards; unsupported sewing; may be re-enforced with secondary stitch chains
Cover: leather, vellum
Arab - pasteboard, foredge flaps in cover; adhesive between cover & text block; pasted linen lining, across spine & onto boards or paste downs
Greek - flat back leather or vellum; may be re-enforced with secondary stitch chains
Earliest English Celtic, Anglo Saxon, Merovingian
Sheet: vellum
Board: oak plain square board
Text Block: flat back
Cover: leather
End Band: each gathering sewed to next, no support, linen threads
Clasps: one strap
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A structural innovation of Anglo Saxon and Carolingian book work, was the technique of sewing text quires onto supports such as thongs or cords of leather, vellum or flax, from the end of the 10th century. A pair of cords was laced through triangular paths in the lower board at the start of sewing. The ends are in the lacing channels in the upper board. This indicates no sewing frame was used.
Sewing frames are documented by the 11 th century. Lacing paths associated with the use of sewing frame include sweeping curved channels of the inner faces of the boards to accommodate the twisted cord ends.
Supported sewing allowed for the production of larger and heavier books, and complicated binding structures. These structures supported the spine and transmitted the leverage of the boards to the text block. The head and tail of the book continued to be sewn in the old way by kettle stitch.
Surviving 8th - 14th century bindings feature sewing onto thick thongs or cords, use of thick, quarter cut wooden boards with tunnels for the sewing supported, laced-in endbands, and soft tawed or tanned skin covers with head and tail tabs. They were often provided with an overcovering, or chemise.
Tunnel lacing, unlike later over-the-board lacing, transmitted board leverage to the text block mechanically during opening and closing. Glue between the folds of the vellum text quires and the leather cover was unnecessary. Corner mitres were frequently sewn shut. The structure was base on mechanical lacings without dependence on adhesive bonds.
Oak boards were used most of the time, beech poplar and fruitwoods were on books probably of foreign origin. The boards with leather covers varied from 7mm - 15mm.
Holes for the lacing path are bored, and v shaped channels are cut on the exterior surface, and on the interior. (see diagram) The sewing support is anchored in the upper board by passing the two ends of a cord from inside and to the outside and through the end of the board, the text block is sewn, and the lacing process is reversed on the lower board. the ends of the cord are twisted together and pegged into holes with wooden wedges.
The holes were bored with a drill, though a glowing awl was used in one instance. Probably a chisel was used to hollow out the channels. The spacing between sewing stations is mostly equidistant. The sewing holes were single cuts of a chisel, at the changeover, sometimes pierced with an awl. the thread was of flax or hemp, mostly flax in the St. Gall area.
The first and last leaves of the text would be pasted down to the interior board surface, often ruled but left blank.
A knife, plane or chisel might have been used to trim the text block using the boards as a guide before covering. Marks on the boards in two instances confirm this practice. The trimmed edge was left blank and no titles on edges have been encountered.
The end bands were a link stitch sewing at the edge of the textblock identical to the Coptic headband. the tab liner usually was chamois leather like that of the covering. The tab is outlined with variants of the link stitch.
Round and square shaped tabs were about equally represented, and were frequently used for attaching bookmarkers.
The covering material is chamois or buckskin of yellowish grey colour. The chamois leather is unidentifiable 75, one silk. The chamois leather is oil tanned while the others could be white tawed. Sometimes holes were patched, or hides joined for a cover.
The bindings of St. Gall are in general, without decoration, though four treasures with ivory carving have been described elsewhere, and a dozen blind tooled volumes originated elsewhere.
St. Gall scriptorium 979-1016
Sheet: parchment
Board: usually oak (quarter split); some slightly bevelled, flat; holes drilled; spacing equidistant (early), triangular paths; inner corners at head & tail cut off to work headband, fine carpentry
Text Block: thread .77mm, modern # 12 or 16; herringbone sewn, kettle at ends;
Cover: usually leather
End Band: link stitch at edge of text
Clasps: strap at upper edge, pin at lower edge
Hasp: ring or ring plate
Sheet: parchment
Board: oak, cut on the quarter, thicker edge to spine; left plank like, with small chamfer or rounding; square sectioned wooden board attachment by means of bands laced through tunnels in the spine edge of the board; rigid slabs of hide occasionally used on small format books; the board sheets and flies are usually part of the text block. Later in the century they became additions.; supports of alum tawed skin are laced through tunnels in board; tunnels are oval or oblong, sometimes with scorch marks
Text Block: the parchment folios are sewn onto two, sometimes 3 heavy, tawed
slit bands; sewing is herringbone, not packed or sometimes helical; supports of alum tawed skin are laced through tunnels in board
Cover: sewn fore edge corners on some; half moon shaped tabs on both ends of the spine; a robust, tawed chemise with narrow skirt
Romanesque bookbinding marks a high point in the binding of the parchment text-block. The 12th century is the first period from which we have a reasonably large body of books to study.
Clarkson estimates there are probably 300-400 English twelfth century bindings still in existence. Their most obvious features are:
In this way a generalised international style is evident which differs from what came before and what developed later.
The carpentry is not as neat as in previous centuries, and as time passes, earth fillers are used to smooth and fill cuts in the board.
Cutting the corners of the board and text, and end band lacing paths after the boards were attached show a fine unity in the approach to the craft. However it is difficult for a modern person to estimate, so unlacing the boards to work the endbands is a more useful solution. to appreciate the structural understanding of the mediaeval binder we must see the spine movement he had in mind. The boards did not hinge like doors, but as the board was opened the text block fanned out, until when the text was fully open, a wide, relaxed and unrestricted opening took place.
The mediaeval binder also appreciated the mechanical potential of the endbands. they were worked with a thread similar in weight to the text sewing, usually a colour and white. As the threads were tightly worked the tabs deformed around the core. Elaborate buttonhole stitch enclosed the raw edges.
The sewing supports enter tunnels in the board edge, resulting in a flat back binding. From around 1240 over the edge flat back books are found.
The covering materials include, calf, tawed pigskin, deer, goat and sheep. Tanned leather is used rarely, but white tawed skin could be stained but not dyed. A common colour is Hermes, but green and blue still exist. By the 12th century, the beautiful English sewn fore edge corners are what remains of the great Anglo Saxon sewing tradition. All others are pasted, as was the entire leather covering.
It is probable that all working monastic library books were covered in a heavy tawed jacket, or chemise, sometimes with metal furniture fit through them. The Romanesque chemise skirt was narrow, about half the thickness of the book. Later the chemise was more flexible and the skirts were extended to wrap around the book, or be gathered at the tail into a girdle book.
The for edge strap exits through a slit or seam and extends to a pin in the centre of the lower board. The fore edge flap was tacketed to the strap, so the flap would move with the strap. The tab ends died out in the mid 13th century.
After 1066 Norman reforms, 35 monasteries increase to 500 by 1200
Sheet: vellum
Board: English oak, Italy beech; Spain full vellum, carved wood, lime, chestnut, sycamore, gilt, ivory, jewel; shaped boards, bevel common later, also chamfer, cushioned bevel (w round back, paper); square, rare before 1140; attach thongs to ends of boards in tunnels
Textblock: gathered on thongs, not packed; kettle on ends, relic of old way; board sheets and flies part of text block
Cover: leather, tanned, brown tooled, withawed white, cured with kermes;no cover and chemise, half cover & chemise, tawed chemise, narrow skirt; half leather, full vellum; hand stamped leather
End Band: head and tail bands, halfmoon tabs; bookmarks 1 - 5 thongs, parchment disc to mark line
Clasps: strap & pin before 1200, nail center back cover, with hook, nail on edge, later
By 1050, the use of the broad Insular pen was introduced from Normandy, and the joined, overlapped letters indicated the beginning of Gothic bookhands. By 1200 full blown Gothic had appeared. Its great period was from 1250 to 1350 and was the model the first printers used. The economical production of books for the universities of Bologna, Paris and Oxford allowed the flourishing af professional non monastic scriptoriums (and presumably book binding facilities).
At Bologna the scripta rotunda of Italy was used from 1250 on, different from the angular northern Gothic book hand. In 1400 printers revived the antiqua littera or Caroline letters.
After 1200 capitals became larger versions of text letters, previously punctuation and highlighting had been by using capitals chosen from obsolete majiscule script, or shallow rustic capitals.
In Germany, at the end of 1200's used horn wood or stiff leather spine supports to combat sag of flat back book bindings and in Italy, metal rods with 16 C limp parchment bindings also attempted to counteract the sag of the Romanesque flat spine.
Another approach was taken by gothic bookbinders:
With the 13th Gothic Renaissance book illumination and design approached true artistic design. The 14th century has been declared the Golden Age of illuminated books, with Italian, German French and English forms becoming quite distinct in the 15th century.
However the advent of paper and the printing press increased the demand for book binding to the detriment of the art. The 15th century bookbinders had lost the memory and respect for mediaeval binding of parchment books. The flexible, user friendly mediaeval bindings had now become unflexible with section sewed around cords, laced through card board boards, and with the leather attached directly to the back of the sections. Headbands no longer had a function and were glued on ornaments.
Sheet: vellum replaced by paper during 13C
Board: wood replaced by pasteboard, bevelled at inner edge at spine
Text block: stitched on leather supports;13C over the board replaces tunnel lacing; bevelled round back; use of backing hammer to round edges of spine; use of extra thread on sewing support to form an artificial arch allows books to be shelved upright
Cover: leather
End Band: with pasteboard covers, became glued on ornaments, no longer had a function
Clasps: metal hasps gave way to ribbon ties with paper and pasteboard
covers
By the 15th century a great range of materials for bookbinding were available, vellums, papers, tawed skins and leathers. Binders of the time worked on books one at a time, completing the whole sequence of the work, enabling the binder to match materials and construction to the right, size and user needs of a given book. They present a standard of work in which structural abbreviation was not considered, contemporaneous with the earliest printed books.
European leather covered binding of the 15th century features vellum stays under the stitches of books on paper. The sewing is done around heavy supports, which are securely laced and pegged into wooden boards. These boards frequently project beyond the text block. This reflects that trimming was done with a binder's plough out of boards. These squares or oversized boards modified endband forms by eliminating the need for head and tail chamfers.
Other characteristics of 15th century leather bindings are the use of full thickness leather and hardware components including clasps, bosses and corner plates.
A structural feature that had fully evolved at the end of the 15th century is the round back, where the board fitted under the shoulder of the spine, swollen by thick sewing thread, and pliant paper quires. By the end of the 15th century paper had largely replaced vellum in book production, and this influenced joint construction.
Over the board lacing is first evident in mid 13th century and soon supplanted earlier tunnel lacing. Bevelling of the tunnel laced board demonstrates how natural the transition was. Over the board lacing is suited to securing the boards against the shoulders, while the action of tight lacing and drawing on of the boards, (16th century) produces the leverage needed to form the backbone into a convex contour. After the 16th century leather covered books were forwarded with a right angle joint regardless of swelling (H) This was a natural outcome the paper paste board. Wooden boards could be bevelled with precision and they had strength at the lacing holes. Paper paste boards were cut in the plow and were weak at the lacing holes. with paper boards it was necessary to round and back the text block prior to fitting on the boards.
From the 16th century onwards, the craft of hand bookbinding has been shaped by commercial pressure into a trade which found it difficult to keep up with the production of printers. From the 17th century on the least expensive covering was paper.
In Italy, from the 16th century, limp vellum bindings sewed on tawed thongs, with endband cores laced through the cover, and prcise gloving and tying of components. Later limp paper covered binding, elimination of endbands represented the least expensive and fastest hand binding.
It took a least a century for printing on paper to completely supplant illuminated manuscripts on vellum.
This hierarchy of more elaborate books for royalty and aristocrats accompanied the decline of the art of illumination for the middle classes, and the ascendancy of printed paper books for everyone else. The Art of bookbinding became mass produced to meet the demands of the printing press and the reading public.