Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Stamped leather.In the fourteenth century bindings of books began to be decorated by stamping patterns with dies or punches on the vellum or pigskin covering of the oak board; a method of decoration which was greatly elaborated and developed in the sixteenth century, especially by the German and Dutch bookbinders.

The earlier stamped designs were of a much simpler character, usually consisting of powderings all over the surface of the cover, with small flowers or animals, such as lions, eagles, swans and dragons of heraldic character. In many cases these punches, or at least their designs, continued in use for a long time, and so one occasionally meets with a fifteenth century book, the binding of which is decorated with stamps of fourteenth or even thirteenth century style.

Stamped bindings.

Stamped bindings.The later class of stamped bindings, belonging rather to printed books than to manuscripts, is often very beautiful and decorative in character, the whole surface of the cover being completely embossed in relief by the skilful application of a great number of punches used in various combinations, so as to form one large and perfectly united design. In these later times, from about the middle of the sixteenth century the tendency was to cut larger designs on one punch or die; and the leather or parchment was softened by boiling so that a large surface could be embossed at one operation. This process was much aided by the invention of the screw-press, which enabled the workman to apply a steady and long-continued pressure. But in the older stamped bindings, as a rule, small punches were used, and the force was simply applied by the blow of a hammer[^[297]].

English bindings.

English bindings.In England very fine stamped bindings of this class were made even in the first half of the fifteenth century. And, just as in earlier times the operations of the binder and the manuscript illuminator had been carried on by the same man, or at least in the same workshop, so we find that some of the earliest English printers, such as Julian Notary, were also skilful binders of their own printed books. The very fine stamped bindings of Julian Notary and other English craftsmen are commonly decorated on one side with the Tudor arms and badges supported by angels, and on the other side with a pictorial scene of the Annunciation of the B. V. Mary with I. N. or other maker's initials.

Wallet bindings.

Wallet bindings.Returning now to the earlier bindings of manuscripts, we should mention one system which was frequently applied to Books of Hours, Breviaries (portiforia), and other portable books. This system was to extend the leather covering far beyond the edges of the wooden boards, which formed the main covers of the manuscripts, so that the book, edges and all were protected, very much as if it were kept in a bag. In fact this sort of binding really was a leather bag to the inside of which the book was attached.

The mouth of the bag was closed by a running thong, a loop or some other fastening, and the book was thus carried about, hung from its owner's girdle[^[298]].

In bindings of this class the leather covering was frequently dressed with the hair on. Corpus Christi College at Oxford possesses a very well-preserved example of this, a manuscript of the thirteenth century in a contemporary bag-covering made of deer's skin, with its soft brown fur in a perfect state of preservation.