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Re: VMs: Re: Counting sheep...?

Hi Barbara,

At 12:15 28/02/2004 +0000, Barbara Blithered: 
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.

Errm... while I'm sure that was true in the early medieval period, I got the impression that "parchment" later came to denote"single-sided skin" and "vellum" "double-sided skin".

*sigh* I wish we were certain about even the most basic things. :-(

Presumably, the thinner the VMs' vellum, the younger the kids/lambs/calves it came from - and so Maurizio's estimate should perhaps be refined to circa (say) 30 lambs?

So, the thinner the vellum, perhaps the most expensive it would have been?

Hmmm.... :-o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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