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• 1 2020-08-01T18:35:06+00:00 The Making of the Book 36 plain 2024-04-24T23:18:55+00:00 Our manuscript is known as Rauner Codex MS 003203. “Rauner” is for the Rauner Special Collections Library of Dartmouth College, in which the manuscript is housed. “Codex” describes its form: it is a book with pages that the reader turns, as opposed to a scroll, which the reader unrolls. And “MS” is an abbreviation for manuscript, literally something “written by hand,” as opposed to a text that has been set in type.
  
  While some codices were being written (and printed) on paper at the time Rauner 003203 was produced, Rauner 003203 is written on parchment, or vellum, which is made from the skin of an animal. The words parchment and vellum are generally used interchangeably, though strictly speaking, vellum refers specifically to parchment made from calf skin (vitellus means “calf” in Latin). Parchment was chiefly made from calf skin, sheep skin, or goat skin.
  
  A parchment-maker, or parchmenter, first selects the skins of slaughtered animals. For the finest parchment, he will avoid skins with obvious flaws, such as scars from wounds or parasites; some of these flaws are evident in our manuscript.
  
  
  
  
  The next step is to soak the skins in a bath of cold water, or lime and water; both the beginning of rot and the action of the lime break down the attachment of hair follicles to the epidermis; the lime also helps to remove fat and grease from the flesh side of the skin. (Turner pp. 58-59) After this stage, which may take several days or even weeks, each skin is taken out of the bath and draped over a flat wooden beam, and the parchmenter scrapes the hair side of the skin, removing both the hair and perhaps the outermost surface of the skin. Then the skin is flipped over and the parchmenter removes the fat and flesh from the flesh side of the skin. Then the skin is again immersed in water for a few days.
  
  When the skin is removed from this second bath, it is stretched on a frame. The parchmenter must stitch up any small cuts made during the flaying or the scraping, so that they do not stretch into holes during the tensioning process; the development of holes is particularly likely on those parts of the skins which are thinner and stretchier, such as the belly and axillary regions. (Turner, p. 58)
  
  
  
  
  To reach an even thinness and a closer match between hair and flesh sides; the parchmenter keeps it wet on the frame and continues to scrape it. After the parchment is finally allowed to dry under tension, the parchmenter scrapes it yet more with a lunate (curved) knife until the desired thinness is reached. Although the parchment is usually thinned from the flesh side, the upper layer of skin may be removed from the hair side as well, to remove its shine and make a better writing surface, especially in the case of vellum. (Turner p. 61; Vnoucek p. 87) During this process, the thread of stitched holes and tears may be removed by the parchmenter, or the parchmenter may avoid these holes while he scrapes the parchment. (Vnoucek, p. 86-87) When the thinning is complete, the parchment is taken off the frame, laid out flat, and pumiced to remove any irregularities. (Vnoucek, p. 89)
  
  Even after scraping and pumicing, the hair side will be yellower than the flesh side, and will tend to curl in on itself because the hair side is less elastic. The flesh side will be whiter, and curl outwards. (for more details on the making of parchment, see DeHamel pp. 25-36)
  
  
  
  To make a codex, each sheet of parchment was usually folded in half to make a bifolium; several bifolia might be nested one within the other, and sewn along the crease in the middle to make a quire, or gathering. A gathering also might be made from a single sheet by folding the single sheet in half along the vertical axis, with the hair side on the outside (making a bifolium), then in half again along the horizontal axis (thus making four folios, or a quarto) and perhaps in half again along the vertical axis (thus making eight folios, or an octavo). After the final crease was sewn, the pages of a quarto or octavo could be split so that the gathering could be opened. But whether a gathering was made by nesting bifolia or by folding a single sheet of parchment multiple times to make a quarto or octavo, gatherings were constructed so that the outside surfaces exposed the hair side, and all the facing pages within were either both flesh side or both hair side (as happens naturally when one makes a quarto or octavo by folding a single sheet).
  
  Our manuscript is different. Because of its large size, the folios are actually single sheets of parchment, each from a single sheep; these single sheets overlap and are glued together in the crease through which the quire is sewn. This overlap is evident both where the sheets have remained glued together and where they have come apart, both when looking at the gutter and at the ends of the quires, near the endbands. The first four folios in our codex are actually two independent bifolia. The rest of the codex consists of 6-folio quires, each made up of three bifolia constructed from separate large sheets of vellum. Two of these quires are missing folios; for details, see below.
  
  Many of the folios, particularly on the hair side, have a dark ridge running down the center where we can see the sheep's spine; this thicker, less elastic skin is quite different from the thinner, stretchier, skin of the flanks and axilla visible at the right and left edges of these folios. The folios where this dark ridge is most evident also exhibit evidence of having been quite heavily scraped and delaminated.
  
  
  
  Carefully-written manuscripts such as ours would have guidelines, scored on the parchment with a knife (drypoint), written in ink or, as in our manuscript, drawn with a lead plummet. (DeHamel, p. 56) Our text is marked with double vertical lines that extend from the top to the bottom of the page to mark off the left and right margins; the horizontal guidelines for the text of the chants extend beyond these vertical lines, but not to the edge of the page.
  
  A common way to speed the process of ruling the folios in a gathering was to measure out the rulings on the first leaf, and then to make a hole right through the entire gathering where the vertical and horizontal lines met. These prickings would then allow each leaf in the gathering to be ruled quickly and consistently. (DeHamel p. 57) These prickings are evident in many folios of our manuscript, where the horizontal guidelines intersect the inner and outer vertical guidelines.
  
  
  
  
  
  Although there is evidence that some manuscripts were ruled and written before they were sewn into gatherings (DeHamel pp. 48-50), the prickings on our manuscript are evidence that Rauner 003203 was organized into gatherings before the process of ruling and writing began. The guidelines can also help us differentiate repairs that were made during the parchment-making process from those that were made later during the book’s use.
  
  
  
  Guidelines, presumably sketched as the text was being written, mark out the spaces for the large capitals at the beginnings of chants and for the red-and-blue initials that appear at the beginning of responsories and before some antiphons (including those at the beginning of each nocturn).
  
  
  
  
  The text in our manuscript was written with a quill pen that would have been dipped into an ink-pot and would have needed frequent sharpening with a knife; in fact, medieval images of scribes show them at work with their quill in one hand, and a pen-knife in the other. (DeHamel pp. 61-69) Black ink was most frequently made from carbon, with gum to make it adhere, or with iron gall, a mixture of oak apples (galls) and ferrous sulphate, with gum arabic as a thickener. Red ink would have been made from vermilion (mercuric sulphide), egg white (glair), and gum arabic. (DeHamel pp. 69-72) The scribe would have sat at a sloping desk. Before beginning work, he would perhaps have finished off the surface of the parchment by rubbing it with pumice, and smoothing it with chalk. (DeHamel, pp. 78-79)
  
  Our scribes would have written the text first, and perhaps were also responsible for the large capitals that are written in pen with black ink and gray highlights. The places for blue-and-red initials and inhabited initials would have been marked out; the scribes may have sketched these initials out as well, and left notes for the illuminator; subsequent damage to our manuscript reveals some of these markings, which were originally concealed by paint.
  
  
  
  After the text was written, the red five-line staff was added, and then the musical notation. Finally, the red-and-blue initials and inhabited initials were added. Close examination of portions of the manuscript containing these elements reveals the order in which they were written (Hughes, p. 117; DeHamel pp. 101-111, with images of unfinished manuscripts that make the process clear).
  
  
  
  
  
  The final step in producing a book was the binding. When the scribes and illuminators had finished their work, the book was still in gatherings, perhaps not yet sewn through their central folds. Before binding, the pages would have been cleaned up (for example, there are signs of the erasure of some of the guidelines in Rauner 003203).
  
  
  To make the text block, the individual gatherings would be sewn onto cords running horizontal to the spine of the book. These cords would have been attached vertically to a frame; one by one, in order, each gathering would be laid down with its spine against the cords, and sewn to each cord through its central fold, or gutter. When the process was complete, all the gatherings would have been stacked and sewn to the cords.
  
  Then, the book would have been taken off the frame, and endbands sewn to the head and tail edges of the spine, to firm it up. (DeHamel, p. 134) Although our manuscript, like most medieval manuscripts made for use, has been rebound more than once over the years, it still illustrates the process:
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  Now the text block was ready to be attached to its cover. The cords were threaded through holes in the boards, and attached to the boards with nails or pegs. Then the boards and spine might be covered with leather, and fitted with metal bosses and other furniture, with clasps to hold the book shut and prevent the parchment from curling. (DeHamel pp. 137-141)
  
  
• 1 2020-07-14T18:11:36+00:00 Conservation of Rauner 003203 20 plain 2024-04-24T23:13:04+00:00

  Thanks to Deborah Howe, Greg Elder, and Jeff Georgantes for the information and images in this section!
  
  In 2017, Rauner 003203 underwent conservation. An initial inspection of the antiphoner revealed clear evidence of water damage and mold growth. At the time of examination, the mold had dried and was found on every page. Using a HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) vacuum, each page was cleaned to remove the inert mold.

  Although the original endbands at the head and tail of the spine were still attached to the wooden boards, the sewing was loose and no longer serving its purpose.

  In general, the sewing of the text block was in stable condition. Only the last few quires had become loose.

  The book had had a previous spine reback, perhaps in the 1940s or 1950s, to judge by the materials and method used. The linings that had extended onto the boards had broken and were no longer offering a text-to-board attachment. In order to address this problem, conservators cut and lifted the leather from the lower board to expose the spine area. Using a poultice of wheat paste to soften the old glue, Deborah Howe removed the linings to expose the back of the quires.

  Removal of the linings and adhesive revealed some older sewing stations (where the quires had been attached to the previous cords) and a different lacing area for the previous cords.

  The quires had been sewn on double cords which were still attached and laced into the boards.The main area of damage was a large section of the lower board. At some point, the edge of the board had splintered off, taking with it the catch plates into which the clasps, attached to the upper board, had once been fastened to keep the book tightly closed and the pages lying flat.

  Greg Elder, Director of the Dartmouth Student Woodworking Shop, helped fabricate an extension to replace the missing area of the lower board.

  The broken edge of the lower board was an angled and jagged break. First, he clamped a narrow board onto the existing cover and used a router, guided by this straight edge, to cut a new straight and square surface to which he could attach an extension. He determined that the original manuscript boards were made of softwood, from a conifer such as pine or spruce. He chose eastern white pine as the repair material as it seemed very similar in density and texture to the original.

  He glued the new addition to the fore-edge and held it in place with clamps. The hinge side of the board was rounded and fragile because of the holes for the binding; this made it impossible to clamp across the width of the board to hold the new wood against the old. Instead, he used wedges between the vertical clamp bar and the new wood to exert pressure.

  The original boards had been constructed with breadboard ends. Greg Elder explains, “Boards tend to warp or cup across the grain, but not along the length. This happens because wood changes dimensions, in width and thickness, but not in length, with changes in relative humidity. So that means the cover is always changing dimension. The grain of the breadboard end runs along the cover’s width and since it tends to stay flat along its length, it holds the cover flat via the tongue and grooves. Tongue and grooves are used for two reasons: one, the end grain of a board cannot be glued to create a strong bond, and two, the cover is changing its width dimension with the seasons and the breadboard end stays the same length. Without the tongue and groove, they would be tearing each other apart.”

  Greg Elder cut the upper corner of the extension to the lower board at a 45 degree angle, with a tongue to fit the remaining part of the original cover. 

  At the lower corner, the extension was cut at a 90 degree angle, with a groove. Once the extension was in place, Greg Elder created a fill piece with a tongue to fit the groove on the extension.

  These pieces gave Deborah Howe the foundation she needed to fill in the remaining gaps in the board before the leather cover was applied.

  The front and back endsheets of the book were missing. To protect the text block and provide a buffer at the front and back, new endsheets were fabricated from handmade paper. These were sewn onto the cords while the text block and loose quires were reinforced.

  After the spine was cleaned, a layer of Japanese paper was used to reline the exposed quires. Once that dried, a layer of tight woven cotton was applied with extensions that attach onto the boards. Both the new endsheets and the refabricated endbands were sewn through the cotton lining.

  After the endbands were sewn through the cotton lining, the cord was laced into the board. Note the previous hole used for the lacing.

  The primary endband is structural; it is anchored into the text block and secures the cord that is laced into the wooden board. The leather secondary endband is decorative.

  The strap for the upper clasp was broken, so a strip of vellum was inserted inside the strap to reinforce it.

  Once all the linings and text block consolidation were complete, the lifted leather spine was reattached. Ace bandages stabilized the re-adhered leather while drying.

  The antiphoner was missing two of the original bossed metal corners on the upper board, as well as three bossed metal corners and the two catch plates on the lower board. Jeff Georgantes from Dartmouth’s Claflin Jewelry Studio helped to fabricate new corners and catch plates.

  He describes the process:

  “First, we made a tracing of the existing parts with pencil and paper to get a fairly accurate outline. Then we manually refined the pattern with tracing paper and a fine point marker. From there we had an accurate template from which to cut out the new parts.
  

  The original furnishings were made of bronze, but as 1/8-inch sheet bronze was not available, we substituted sheet brass. Brass and bronze are very similar, although bronze is redder and brass is more yellow. After attaching the templates, we cut out the shapes with a variety of metal cutting saws. Then using files and sandpaper we refined the shapes. From there we drilled holes and fabricated some raised shapes on the parts that we soldered into position.

  Finally, to make the brass look more like the original aged bronze, we copper-plated the new parts and oxidized them with a sulphur solution.”

  Here you can see the finished upper board, with two new bossed metal corners, and the finished lower board, with new leather covering the repair to the board and 3 new bossed metal corners.
  

  Finally, the new catch plates were attached to the new leather-covered extension to the lower board.

  In this final view of the book, you can see the repaired upper board and the metal clasps at the fore-edge, fastened into the new catch plates.