Parchment waste

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Parchment waste in the inner cover of a chain book , 15th century: To protect the pressure , the chain stop in the rear cover was pasted over with a piece of manuscript. The cover mirror is made of mended parchment (seam below right).

Parchment waste describes the misuse of written or unwritten sheets of parchment from manuscripts for the purpose of making or repairing books, for example as strips for reinforcement or as binding. Eg in the context of book repairs - - can described by the discovery believed lost or previously unknown writings makulierte parchment fragments an important role in the reconstruction of ancient or medieval texts play.

background

With the development of letterpress printing on paper in the second half of the 15th century, the old manuscripts were increasingly viewed as worthless compared to printed works. However, they were not disposed of, but reused because of the expensive material, the parchment on which they were written. For example, written parchment sheets could be given in payment at the book printer, but especially at the bookbinder . There they were used - written on or blank, sometimes scraped off or washed off - as a book cover , book spine and cover mirror or they were used to hang up the book block and to repair damaged book or cover parts, because parchment, as untanned animal skin, is particularly supple and resilient. Glue was also cooked from scraps of parchment. Excepted from this flaw were the cimilies , the illuminated splendid manuscripts .

use

Book cover with parchment waste: The manuscript fragments served as so-called "backing" to strengthen the cross-connection of the layers
Binding of a print from the first half of the 16th century: on the front cover (below) an old candle wax damage.

Already in the incunabula of the 15th century, strips of tainted manuscripts strengthened the bond between the book block and the book cover or found a function that was valued but hidden from the eyes as an underlay for the binding, the spine and the cover; The valuable outer shell made of embossed leather was preferred for the increasingly attractive prints .

The early prints from the beginning of the 16th century are not infrequently bound in written parchment; these bindings were cheaper than the lavish leather-covered covers of the incunabula. However, book customers did not find the appearance of the manuscripts very attractive; the manuscript sheets for the binding were occasionally also given an embossing and the writing was completely painted over with a dark color in order to imitate the impression of the leather binding.

In the 17th century the effect of manuscripts as bindings was appreciated again; the bookbinder made sure that any colored capitals or two-tone fonts could develop a creative effect. Folios got their bindings from sheet music of the choir books laid out in oversized folio , which in the Middle Ages had allowed the group of singers to orientate the liturgies from the spatial distance and which had long been replaced by the more manageable sheet music printing; the large, square black notes on the red lines made for an interesting cover decoration.

Since the 17th and 18th centuries, medieval manuscript sheets made of parchment, such as the Schönrainer Liederhandschrift , have also increasingly been used to cover files. Incunabula were occasionally also mistaken in this form when their presentation no longer met the demands of the public. For example, several editions of Johannes Gutenberg's 42-line Bible , the so-called Gutenberg Bible , have only survived as remnants that had been used to cover account books and files.

Significance for philology

In the 19th century, philology recognized the value of incomplete, that is to say, handwritten fragments that were only present in single sheets, not only of ancient but also of medieval literature. Increasingly, she also turned her gaze to the blemished remains that were only present in strips or tatters.

Parts of the poor Heinrich von Hartmann von Aue , the so-called fragments E , for example, have only survived in eleven longitudinal strips of maculated parchment leaves. The fragments discovered in the 1960s were used to seal the organ pipes in the Benediktbeuern monastery . At the beginning of the 21st century, the Zwettl Abbey Library in Lower Austria contained ten pieces of parchment of different sizes in a previously neglected box, which were initially mistaken for parts of a manuscript of the Nibelungenlied , but have since been identified as parts from the Erec . The form and location of the Zwettler fragments led to the thesis that they might have been collected for book work. Modern book studies also sensitized restorers to the details of damaged bindings, which consisted of misappropriated parchment manuscripts. In 2005 the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek acquired a piece of parchment spoilage that had been discovered in the course of a book restoration and that contains a passage from Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival . In 2017, the Princeton University library acquired a 347 x 218 mm fragment of a Gutenberg Bible (approx. 1455) that had been used as a cover.

Significance for the historical sciences and historical auxiliary sciences

Parchment waste is not only important for philology . In the reconstruction of medieval libraries as in the history of the reception of certain works, each fragment is a witness of a lost volume and requires careful analysis. In medieval manuscripts there are also documents as waste. The growing awareness of the value of this tradition led to the emergence of collections of fragments in archives and libraries .

Research and backup

The cutting waste or Pergamenteforschung is part of the cover research , the end of the 19th century began to establish itself. So was Karl August Barack with his recording of significant book collection Joseph of Laßbergs from 1860, the parchment-described radicals, which he found in the covers, secured; During his activity in the new Strasbourg library after 1871, he identified damaged parchments discovered in their holdings and published them. Konrad Haebler introduced waste research into science as an aid to palaeography , literacy, scriptories and printing research. The examination of the fragments serves to determine the provenance and the time of creation, but also to reconstruct a tradition of literary and practical texts from the Middle Ages and from the early printing period. The research on waste is not only used as an aid for palaeography, but is also the subject of codicology , the study of manuscripts.

Parchment fragments, usually found during book restoration, are collected, photographically and recently also digitally secured, identified and increasingly scientifically developed. The University and State Library in Düsseldorf , for example, maintains an extensive collection of manuscript fragments, which also includes a large number of parchment waste .

gallery

Bindings with parchment waste

  • Folder

  • 17th century book cover

  • Choir book sheet (parchment, 14th century), bound in a manuscript by Friederich Martens (17th century)

  • Choir book cover, back: reinforcement with pages from a print from 1554

  • Book cover 1811: Corners and spines made from parchment waste

literature

Web links

Commons : Parchment Waste  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source: Zimmerische Chronik, Volume 2, page 499f
  2. ↑ Ursula Rautenberg (Ed.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Buch. Stuttgart 2003; P. 347
  3. ^ Munich, State Library, Cgm 5249 / 29b
  4. ^ The German manuscripts of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Münschen. The Medieval Fragments CGM 5249-5250 . Described by Karin Schneider. With four descriptions by Elisabeth Wunderle. Wiesbaden 2005 ( online )
  5. ↑ Zwettler fragments in the manuscript census
  6. ↑ See update! The oldest texts of the Nibelung material? - FAZ March 30, 2003
  7. ^ Bettina Wagner: A newly acquired "Parzival" fragment from the Bavarian State Library . In: Journal of German Antiquity 134 (2005)
  8. ↑ Eric White: Princeton Acquires a Vellum Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible Preserved as a Book Cover. In: Blog. Princeton University, April 18, 2017, accessed April 20, 2017 .
  9. ^ Karl August Barack: Fragments of Middle High German poems in the University and State Library of Strasbourg . In: Germania 25 (1880) 161–191, here pp. 186–190 (with reprint)
  10. ^ Konrad Haebler: waste research . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekwesen 25 (1908)
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 23, 2007 .