Coursera: Medieval Manuscript Class - Week 3

So in week three the hands-on project becomes a little more complex with the creation of the quires since we prepared our "parchment". Now despite the fact that you have an idea of exactly what you want to create, you will get dinged on points if you do not try every method shown in the class. Also, if you do not use "enough" terminology from the class, you will also get dinged, so I went as far as to italicize every one of them and put a total count on the bottom of the report. What really pissed me off on this section was that despite my having listed 4 MSS as inspiration for all my work, in this peer graded assignment someone said I listed only two.

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The hands on project this week was a lot of fun despite my OCD screaming at me to make sure all my folds and cuts were straight. But all said and done I am pleased with the results. The board projects seem to have lost my interest and I will probably stick with the hands on project from here on in.

I will be able to make ten quires with my five black "parchment" boards but rather than make a mistake with them, I used a plain white poster board to use for practice and experimentation to determine how I wanted my project's end results. Both my test matter and completed works are included in this report.

Step One

First, I took the test board and folded it as shown.

This was folded "in octavo" and resulted in a very large leaf, however, gave me quaternions (4 sets of bifolia). So I could choose to fold it again and have seniones but felt it would be better to cut the sheet in half and give it another go. Besides, the board tends to bunch up a lot and get harder to fold the further along you fold.

So I took the half sheet and folded them in two different ways to determine which way I wanted to fold my black "parchment". Both methods are illustrated as figures A and B.

Here are the results of both on the test board and I personally preferred method A over method B and proceeded to use this method on my black "parchment".

I started to work on my black "parchment" by folding them in half in order to give myself a line to cut along.

Once I cut all five sheets in half I now had ten sheets which will give me the ten quires of the size I wanted.

To start, I fold the "parchment" sheet in half along the length.

Next I fold the "parchment" sheet in half again along the width.

Then I fold the "parchment" sheet again one more time along the width.

Repeat this processes nine more times and I have ten total quires.

Step Two

Now I needed to decide if I wanted to impose my text or cut free the pages of the bifolia and I did this by doing a quick little numbering text on each of the leaves.

I then opened it up and wrote the numbers larger and examined the work and thought for a while on it. With the way my memory can be and with my OCD I decided it would mostly frustrate me too much and decided to go along with cutting and using tackets.

Now, one thing I learned when cutting these was to unfold them and cut along the creases with scissors. I just made sure I always cut the outside first, then the insides to keep uniformity.

The reason being for this was that I tried using a knife at first, and maybe it is because it was dull, but the cut I got on my test matter was horrid.

For my tacket, since I was at work when I made these I did not have much to work with. My tool for punching a hole through the "parchment" was a paper clip which I used like an awl to get through the four layers.

Then I decided to use what I also had available on hand at the time to actually use as a tacket, a paper clip. I even debated putting a piece of tape on the end and write the letter of the quire but later decided against it as it will not be needed.

Using a paper clip is probably not the best tool to make a hole through my "parchment" but if I took my time it did eventually make a good clean hole.

When I put the paper clip in through the hole, I pushed through to the second loop, allowing more mobilty with the sheets. Later I can either unloop it or just cut them off.

Then I just repeated the process nine more times until all ten quires were done.

Step Three

Lastly I had to mark my quires in the order that they will be in. I looked at the examples I had of the three Black Hours books and only found examples in the Morgan Black Hours as the other two are really limited with what images are shown online.

Morgan Black Hours Collection: https://www.pinterest.com/georgemenke/the-black-book-of-hours/

Charles Black Hours: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843616577/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843616575/

Maria Black Hours: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843616574/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843616572/

However, I did recently find another book that was done all on black (appears to be paper) but it is only a song book from the 15th century and is barely illustrated. I personally do not like the work, but am including it here only to satisfy the need of a 4th MS. I was not able to get a lot of information on this book other than it being listed as Brussels Manuscript KB 9085. I could not find any quire markings or signatures in this book, but you can easily see the stitching in the center of the quires.

https://www.pinterest.com/georgemenke/brussels-manuscript-kb-9085/

But the method used to mark the quires in the Morgan Black Hours was interesting and different from the examples we learned in class. It seems only the recto side of the quires were marked at all. The top right corner had the number of the current page and the bottom left corner had the number of the previous page. Three examples below are directly linked.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843551326/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843551431/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464011567843551482/

I discovered this after I had already marked my own in pencil, so when the time comes, I will change these marks when I begin to use my silver ink so that it matches the book I am trying to emulate.

And there you have it! Work complete!

Technical terms used: 31 times.