- #DOES G EVER LOOK LIKE A 5 IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS HOW TO#
- #DOES G EVER LOOK LIKE A 5 IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS SKIN#
Perhaps the most famous is ultramarine, as Cennini Cennino called it ‘perfect, beyond all other colours’. Pigments used in illuminations came from animal, vegetable and mineral sources. There’s more on setting out a manuscript page here. Here the ‘point’ would actually be a triangle shape and this can be seen in some manuscripts. On occasion, the lines would be set out using a ruler and lead point (or similar) and then the positions marked using the tip of a knife (perhaps a penknife).
#DOES G EVER LOOK LIKE A 5 IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS SKIN#
Having cut pieces of skin to size for writing, the page needed to be set out, and often dividers – similar to sets of compasses, but with a point at the end of each leg – were used as it was easier to mark the exact positions of the guidelines in this way. In this clip I explain about the differences between the hair and flesh sides of vellum and also the qualities of other types of skin. The writing surface was vellum or parchment – calfskin, sheepskin, goatskin or ever deer on occasion.
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It’s the tannic acid from the galls reacting to copperas (iron sulphate) that creates a dark liquid, and which needs an adhesive, in this case gum Arabic, to ensure that it adheres to the writing surface. Ink was usually made from oak galls, although in fact peach, cherry and apricot stones can also be used but give a less dense colour.
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#DOES G EVER LOOK LIKE A 5 IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS HOW TO#
There’s more on quill knives and how to cut a quill on my website on this link. Indeed, penknives today (the clue is in the name!) still always have a curved blade. I always use penknives which have curved blades as the curve rolls over the slight curve in the barrel of a feather to cut the nib tip, whereas a straight blade tends to squash the feather.
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The first film features the pen used for the writing, which, of course, was usually a quill cut from the feather of a large bird. The films are now on the British Library’s and the Bibliotèque nationale’s websites (the latter being dubbed into French) and sections of the films were also used in the fantastic 2017–2018 Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition at the British Library. They were keen to show how those manuscripts were made, and so it was on two very hot days in the summer of 2017 that Dr Alison Ray, filmer Jan and I spent many hours recording those processes. It really was a great joy and privilege to be part of the great Polonsky Project, which was a joint venture between the British Library and the Bibliotèque nationale in Paris to digitise manuscripts which from before the year 1100.