At the beginning of Michaelmas term of 2025 and the new academic year at Cambridge University, our new exhibition in the Parker Library, Making Medieval Manuscripts, honours the countless men and women who laboured over preservation and transmission of knowledge during the Middle Ages.

With a quill in his right hand and a knife in the left, the scribe with a monastic tonsure labours at his writing desk, angled at 45 degrees for optimal working position. 11th-century take on St Jerome (d. 420) at his desk, now CCCC MS 389, ff. 1v-2r. 

Making medieval manuscripts was, and still is(!), a complex process involving professionals at multiple stages: from parchment preparation to binding the finished product in protective covers. Most of this work remains anonymous, it is only rarely that we get glimpses of individuals working to preserve knowledge for posterity.

The scribe copying the first full vernacular translation of Gospel of Matthew in Old English ended with a colophon (in Latin!) naming himself as one Ælfric and stating that he wrote at Bath for the benefit of a certain Brihtwold. CCCC MS 140, f. 45v, first half of the 11th century. 

From raw hide to pricking and ruling

Before a scribe could start to work on a manuscript, much preparation had already happened. The parchment on which they would write was made so that the animal hide (usually calf, sheep, or goat) was ready to receive ink. The prepared parchment was cut to suitable size, and the design for the text and potential images had to be executed – lots of pricking and ruling! Tour visitors are welcomed to feel modern parchment to judge its suitability for writing.

Animal hides could contain small insect bites, that would stretch to big holes during the preparation. The process itself could also damage the delicate surface. Visibility of blemishes and holes often signifies lower quality of parchment, but the scribal work could still be outstanding. 11th-century Pontifical that contains a set of texts for performing the duties of a bishop, now CCCC MS 163, p. 191.  

Time to write

With a quill, a knife and an inkpot at hand the scribe would set to work. Ink recipes varied, one commonly used was iron-gall ink, made by mixing a solution of crushed-up oak galls, iron, rainwater and gum arabic. The knife came in handy when the quill’s nib needed re-shaping, when a mistake needed to be erased, or perhaps just to hold down the sheet. The text to be copied would be near for constant consultation. The work was physically hard, and some scribes left their complaints on the pages:

“The scribe’s craft is the hardest of all crafts; it is exhausting work to cross the sheets and bend the neck for twice a three-hour shift.“ 

"Ardua scriptorum prae cunctis artibus ars est; difficilis labor est, durus quoque flectere colla, et membrana bis ternas sulcare per horas". Digital manuscript on “Codices Vossiani Latini Online” : Leiden University Libraries, VLQ 33, f. 133v, third quarter of the 9th century. (Not on display in the Parker Library exhibition).

“One who does not know how to write does not think that it is work. Three fingers write, the whole body suffers.” 

“Qui nescit scribere laborem esse non putat. Tribus digitis scribitur totum corpus laborat.“ Scribal complaint in an 8th-century manuscript, now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 9561, fol. 81v. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France. (Not on display in the Parker Library exhibition).

Show your colours

Sources for painting materials were also varied. Various recipes survive for producing colours for decorating. Some raw materials were easy to come by and could be prepared by anyone with knowledge: goose feathers for quills, oak galls for ink, and plants such as woad (for blue) and madder (for light pink) or minerals like verdigris (for green) were plentiful. On the expensive end would be the colours produced from lapis lazuli (imported from northern Afghanistan) or the thin gold leaf for illuminators. Come and admire some of our brilliant examples.

Applying gold was an artform. The illuminator worked through multiple stages to create their stunning art. Gold was applied first, before any other colours:

• Outline the image.
• Prepare gesso - a mix of gums, glues, plaster of Paris, and red clay known as bole that was added to give the gold a warm tone. Apply the gesso where the gold is to be and burnish it.
• Incise additional decorative flourishes to the gesso while it is still malleable (optional).
• Add thin tissue of gold leaf.
• Polish with a burnisher for brilliant glow.

Many of the most lavishly decorated and illuminated manuscripts were produced by wealthy patrons. Opulently coloured and illuminated images paraded the commissioners wealth. Frontispiece from Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, now CCCC MS 61, f. 1v, early 15th century.  

Binding

When all this work was done, there is still one important stage left for the manuscript: binding. Bindings were the first line of defence for the text-block inside. They were utilitarian, and served to keep the quires together, in order, and protected. They were replaced as needed, because they fell apart, or because the owners wanted to update their book by adding more material or remove existing quires deemed unnecessary or better suited in another context.

For centuries old bindings were discarded at the end of their service, so very few medieval bindings survive today. Those that remain are greatly valued and cared for. Rebinding replaces poor modern bindings, for example, to improve usability of too tightly bound manuscripts or to facilitate digitisation. (Interested in bindings? Read more about detective work around our recent case of creating a conservation binding to one of our manuscripts!) A modern sowing station with a work-in-progress is set up in the exhibition to reveal the book-structure for medieval manuscripts.

Although the names of most of these skilled craft people remain forgotten, the works they produced are valued and admired everywhere. 

The Parker Library curated this exhibition with the Cambridge Colleges Conservation Consortium. We wish to thank Flavio Marzo, Lizzie Willetts and Florence Watson for their assistance and loan of materials.

Tuija Ainonen, Sub-Librarian and Special Collection Librarian at the Parker Library.

Want to read or hear more? 

Book your place on one of our 1-hour weekly tours organised via Parker Library’s Eventbrite page.

View Parker Library YouTube Playlist, with links to short demonstrations by calligrapher Patricia Lovett (shorts commissioned by The British Library) 

Read The Making (and re-making) of a Medieval Manuscript