VMs: Re: Counting sheep...?

["Barbara Barrett" <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick Noted;
> The VMs is foliated up to 116: even allowing a couple of extra sheep for
> extra fold-outs, surely this would point to only about 10 sheep (rather
> than 30)? Or were sheep much smaller back then? Or was it actually
> goatskin? Or - as it's vellum, not parchment - is it more likely to be
> calfskin?

Barbara Blithers;
Indeed Nick, vellum is very fine parchment made from calfskin. One needs a
young animal for the quality of its skin to make vellum. Ergo the vms' raw
materiel wasn't sheep :-) It is *possible* to make vellum from other young
animals such as Goat Kids, Lambs and foals, but lambs and kids don't provide
enough skin for commercial vellum making and foalskin, unless the foal died
by accident, was seldom available for vellum manufacture.

The "wasting sheep" argument doesn't hold anyway as the supply of sheepskin
was always cheap and plentiful from an animal regularly slaughtered for its
food content. This is true of Calves too; they'd be slaughtered anyway,
regardless whether their skin went to clothes or vellum making afterwards.

The use of Vellum for the vms probably tells us more about the social
standing, class, and wealth, of the vms author and/or the household he/she
worked for. A high class household wouldn't use "common" parchment - for any
purpose.

It is my understanding that medieval economics worked backwards from our
modern perspective. "Luxury" manufactured goods were cheap rather than
expensive, which is why artisans of luxury goods sought Patrons: because the
sale of their wares was insufficient to provide a living by themselves.

And just for the record:-

Papyrus:
Invented in Ancient Egypt: earliest example from 1st dynasty (circa 3050bc
to 2890bc) mastaba tomb of Hemaka at Saqqara. In later times Egypt exported
papyrus (available in several qualities) to Greece, The Near (Middle) East,
and the Roman Empire.

Parchment:
Invented in Pergamum, a Hellenistic city-state, 2nd Century BC. The
invention broke Egypt's monopoly on raw material for scrolls and Pergamum
grew very rich from selling parchment and its wool based textiles. Unlike
Papyrus, the writing on parchment could be scraped off and the parchment
re-used. Sheep were slaughtered on a regular, almost industrial, basis so
the
supply of skin was steady, and cheap. The Library of Pergamum rivaled
Alexandria's, and after the latter's annex was burned down by Caesar's
capture of Alexandria, it was Pergamum's library that supplied copies of all
the lost volumes to Alexandria, by Mark Anthony's orders.

Vellum:
A very fine parchment, particularly made from the skin of a calf, also 2nd C
BC. Unlike parchment it was too thin to be scraped for re-use and was thus
too valuable for casual work (errors were almost impossible to correct).
Vellum was only used for final drafts of original works or "best" copies of
earlier works in scriptoria.

However, in private hands vellum was used for all manner of things from
doodles to private letters to personal documents: it was a mater of
prestige. A bit like wearing a Rolex when a Casio will tell the time just as
well and probably look better too. A vellum letter was a way of displaying
wealth - not that vellum could be afforded, but that the writer could afford
to waste it - it was assumed the versions with errors were simply disposed
of.

It was vellum's inability to be reused that made it a prestige material.
Calfskin was not rare, calves too were regularly slaughtered for their meat.
The fine skin was not durable enough for workaday or outdoor clothes, and
found buyers for making indoor clothes for the wealthy (those who could
afford more than one set of clothes and boots etc - calfskin being more
comfortable than leather too) and for vellum making. Calfskin shouted
prestige, not because it was in itself expensive, but that the wearer could
afford these items *in addition* to more practical clothing.

Paper.
Paper pre-dates parchment, but didn't come into European use until a
millennium after the introduction of parchment.

Invented by Chinese circa 2nd Century AD, Arabs learned secret of paper
making in 786AD, By 11thC was popular in Byzantium and it had spread all
over Europe by 12th Century AD. European paper was made by hand in small
quantities, but the supply was steady as demand was high. By the 15thC there
were paper mills all over Europe, although it was 16thC before England had
one. It was the invention of printing that created the greatest demand for
paper.

Paper's biggest advantage over parchment wasn't expense, but unlike
parchment the supply wasn't seasonal, and fresh paper was available all year
round.

Confusingly, these days, many paper makers call paper made from organic
fibers, thick and rather coarse, "Parchment" <shrug>.

Nuff said

Barbara



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