| Finest vellum. |
Finest vellum.Vellum for scribes[[238]]. The most remarkable skill is shown by the perfection to which the art of preparing vellum[[239]] for the scribe was brought. The exquisitely thin uterine vellum, which was specially used for the minutely written Anglo-Norman Vulgates of the thirteenth century, has been already described; see page [113]. For ivory-like beauty of colour and texture nothing could surpass the best Italian vellum of the fifteenth century.
One occasional use of the very thin uterine vellum should be noted. For example in a German twelfth century copy of the Vulgate, now in the Corpus library in Cambridge, some of the miniature pictures have been painted on separate pieces of uterine vellum, and then pasted into their place on the thicker vellum pages of the manuscript. This, however, is an exceptional thing.
| High price of vellum. |
High price of vellum.The vellum used for illuminated manuscripts appears to have been costly, partly on account of the skill and labour that were required for its production, and, in the case of uterine vellum on account of the great number of animals' skins that were required to provide enough material for the writing of a single manuscript such as a copy of the Vulgate.
| Cost of vellum. |
Cost of vellum.Even the commoner kind of parchment used for official documents was rather a costly thing. The roll with the Visitation expenses of Bishop Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford from 1282 to 1317, shows that 150 sheets of parchment cost 3s. 4d., about £4 in modern value[[240]].
The vellum used for manuscripts has a different texture on its two sides. One side, that on which the hair grew, has a mat, unglossy surface; the other (interior) side of the skin is perfectly smooth and, in the case of the finest vellum, has a beautifully glossy texture like that of polished ivory.
In writing a manuscript the scribe was careful to arrange his pages so that two glossy and two dull pages came opposite each other[[241]].
| Bad modern vellum. |