Illuminated Manuscripts: Hands on project 6 – medieval bookbinding

Coptic dos-a-dos; link stitch binding; limp vellum with wooden spine; model St Cuthbert; 18th century half binding with false raised bands

Picture above are some of the models I have made in workshops, and I thought I’d use them here.

For this week’s project I will do two bindings: a Byzantine binding with bi-axial sewing, something I’ve never done. For this I will use blank paper. Our project manuscript will be bound in a Coptic manner.

Byzantine binding:

Byzantine binding: Exposed linked sewing and endbands with board remnants. University of Canbridge Special Collections

According to Szirmai there are several methods of attaching the textblock to the boards, and I will use the most common method, which is to use the sewing thread to hinge the boards to the first quire (which is the same as in Coptic.). The sewing will be recessed. I will attach one fly leaf as a hooked leaf, to be pasted down on the board. I will attach the two halves with a link stitch. A thin linen cloth will be used as spine lining.

La imagen de arriba son algunos de los modelos que he hecho en talleres, y pensé que los usaría aquí.
Para el proyecto de esta semana haré dos encuadernaciones: una encuadernación bizantina con costura biaxial, algo que nunca he hecho. Para esto usaré papel en blanco. Nuestro manuscrito del proyecto estará vinculado de manera copta.

Encuardenacion bizantina:

Según Szirmai, hay varios métodos para unir el bloque de texto a los tableros, y utilizaré el método más común, que es usar el hilo de coser para articular los tableros al primer quire (que es lo mismo que en Coptic). La costura se empotrará. Adjuntaré una hoja de mosca como una hoja enganchada, para pegarla en el tablero. Adjuntaré las dos mitades con una puntada de enlace. Se utilizará un paño de lino fino como revestimiento del lado.

L’image ci-dessus est quelques-uns des modèles que j’ai réalisés dans des ateliers, et j’ai pensé les utiliser ici.

Pour le projet de cette semaine, je ferai deux reliures: une reliure byzantine avec couture bi-axiale, ce que je n’ai jamais fait. Pour cela, j’utiliserai du papier vierge. Le manuscrit de notre projet sera lié de manière copte.

Reliure byzantine:

Selon Szirmai, il existe plusieurs méthodes pour attacher le bloc de texte aux plats et j’utiliserai la méthode la plus courante, qui consiste à utiliser le fil à coudre pour articuler les plats au premier besoin (qui est le même qu’en copte). La couture sera en retrait. Je vais attacher une feuille de garde  comme une feuille crochue, à coller  à  l’interieur du plat. Je vais attacher les deux moitiés avec un point de lien. Une fine toile de lin sera utilisée comme doublure du dos.

1. Getting the boards ready:

Cut opposite grooves

Glue

Forms an edge groove

Press overnight

After letting dry overnight, I used lino cutting tools to define the grooves. After I used an awl to make the sewing holes in the board I made the grooves in which the sewing thread would lie.

Sewing the text block to the board.

I used herringbone sewing for this as it is a linked stitch; it will also fit in the cavity created in the spine of the gatherings. I have never done this sort of sewing before, this is one of the reason why I chose it. As with coptic books, the board is attached to the first gathering or quire. However when you attach the subsequent quire, unlike the coptic, you must still return to the board. It is only with the third gathering or quire that you start the herringbone pattern. This is done because you go down two quires to wrap the thread, thus making it a bit more solid. At each end is the change over station and you do a kettle stitch as per usual. If you are not a bookbinder you won’t know what that means, but once I realised this it all became clear in my head.

Después de dejar secar durante la noche, utilicé herramientas de corte de linóleo para definir los surcos. Después de usar un punzón para hacer los agujeros de costura en el tablero, hice las ranuras en las que se colocaría el hilo de coser.

Coser el bloque de texto al tablero.

Utilicé la costura en espiga para esto, ya que es una puntada unida; También cabe en la cavidad creada en el lomo de los cuadernos. Nunca antes había hecho este tipo de costura, esta es una de las razones por las que lo elegí. Al igual que con los libros cópticos, el tablero se adjunta a lel primero cuaderno.  Sin embargo, cuando adjuntas la secuencia posterior, a diferencia del cóptico, aún debes volver al tablero. Es solo con el tercero cuaderno o quire que comienza el patrón en espiga. Esto se hace porque baja dos necesidades para envolver el hilo, lo que lo hace un poco más sólido. En cada extremo está el cambio de estación y se hace una cadena como de costumbre. Si no eres un encuadernador, no sabrás lo que eso significa, pero una vez que me di cuenta de esto, todo se aclaró en mi cabeza.

Après avoir laissé sécher toute la nuit, j’ai utilisé des outils de coupe lino pour définir les rainures. Après avoir utilisé un poinçon pour faire les trous de couture dans le plat, j’ai fait les rainures dans lesquelles le fil à coudre se trouverait.  

Coudre le bloc de texte au plat

J’ai utilisé la couture à chevrons pour cela car c’est un point lié; il s’insérera également dans la cavité créée dans lle dos des cahiers. Je n’ai jamais fait ce genre de couture auparavant, c’est une des raisons pour lesquelles je l’ai choisi. Comme pour les livres coptes, le plat est attaché au premier cahier. Cependant, lorsque vous attachez le quire suivant, contrairement au copte, vous devez toujours retourner au plat. Ce n’est qu’au troisième cahier que vous démarrez le motif à chevrons. Cela se fait parce que vous descendez deux cahiers pour envelopper le fil, le rendant ainsi un peu plus solide. À chaque extrémité se trouve la station de changement et vous faites une chainette. Si vous n’êtes pas relieur, vous ne saurez pas ce que cela signifie, mais une fois que j’ai réalisé cela, tout est devenu clair dans ma tête.

News: after reading Richard Horton’s amazing Booksewings by Hand, I have realised that the sewing was actually looping packed recessed link stitch! Herringbone is similar but not the same.

Noticias: ¡después de leer las increíbles Booksewings by Hand de Richard Horton, me di cuenta de que la costura en realidad era una puntada de enlace empotrada en bucle! La espiga es similar pero no igual.
Nouvelles: après avoir lu  Booksewings by Hand de Richard Horton, je me suis rendu compte que la couture bouclait en fait un point encastré! Le chevron est similaire mais pas le même.

Byzantine sewing:

I used 2 different colours of paper so that I could see how the two halves were joined together. Each half is sewn to the board and then joined with link stiches in the middle.

marking the sewing stations

v cut in the spine

both halves cut

mark board

drill holes in boards

using lino cutting tool to make channels

channels made

sewing the board and first quire

The sewing begins with the first quire being attached to the board. At the third quire the link stitch starts. Because of the V cut, the stitching is recessed.

Thread in channels

the needle going under section

needle going under section or quire

link stitch begins

two halves

stitching the halves together

detail of linking of halves

finished text block

Once this sewing is done spine lining of mull and linen is put on spine;this is to reinforce the spine. This will be a flat spine.

mull on spine

The difference between coptic and byzantine sewing is when to do the link stitch. It appears that in the Byzantine, the link is done 3 quires down, whereas in the Coptic it is done under the immediate previous quire. Here are the two finished bindings:

L: Coptic with headband R: Byzantine with headband and lining

 

Here is a sequence for the Coptic sewing:

text and boards

using a telephone book and a jog to prick holes

all holes made

adding board to first quire

adding second quire

under the previous quire

bone fold after each quire sewn

finished

adding the last board

Endbands -tranchefiles – capitelo(?)*

Collection of Byzantine endbands – University of Cambridge Special Collections

This is my favourite stage of bookbinding.There are such a variety and yes they are time consuming, but oh so satisfying to make. Despite the time constraints I did the endbands on the heads of both the Byzantine and the Coptic.

Byzantine headband

Coptic headband

Here is a sequence for the Byzantine headband. I have never done this before, so it is not that good looking. I looked at various books including :Headbands and how to work them by Greenfield and Hille, and really good basic videos by Robert and Sherif.  These will give you some good basics.

I made a half cover for the Byzantine. Normally with the Coptic I would have covered the boards first before sewing, but I am pretending they are wooden boards and I wouldn’t cover them.

Here is the sequence for adding leather to the Byzantine block:

folded over corners

Corners with tongue

head covered in leather

leather in the grooves

The endleaves are sometimes called the pastedown. Technically the endleaves are the leaves at either end of the book, usually loose. The pastedown is the sheet that is pasted onto the board. It may have been under the leather cover, but more usually is it over the leather cover.

Glueing out the endleaf

Cover with pasted endleaf

Pastedown and first page of the Coptic

 

Both books now finished:

Coptic and Byzantine

L: Coptic with headband R: Byzantine with headband

That’s it!

This was by far the most enjoyable part of the course. Even though I am a bookbinder, I had never done a Byzantine binding nor its headband. NEither am I very good at Cptic headbands. So this was  good challenge for me.

Here is a short movie about how I learned to make a model St Cuthbert Gospel book in 2017.

Thanks for reviewing for the course Decipering Illuminated Manuscripts.

Here is an image of a Romanesque binding:

Romanesque binding as described in https://heraldry.sca.org/kwhss/2017/The%20Art%20of%20Bookbinding.pdf

We can see the herringbone sewing on double supports that are laced into the wooden boards, as well as the double endbands.

 

The ever lasting gift of bookbinding

It is the week end before Christmas and the town is eerily silent. A blanket of smoke sticks to the air, blocking out the sun, but it is hot nonetheless. There are 2 brave stall holders at the monthly outdoor market, with not a sausage visiting them. At the indoor farmer’s market, vendors have made an effort to come out and it is very nearly festive in the community hall.

Water from the sky would save us as there is none flowing in the creeks and rivers around us. There is a sense of despondency but people are people and put on a brave face.  Small kindnesses reminds us that we care, like bowls of water put out on the sidewalks for the dogs, or offers of food or rooms for those displaced by the fires.

It’s been like this for over three weeks. A constant acrid smell of burnt leaves, burnt eucalyptus. I escape to Canberra, the nearby capital, but lately it hasn’t been much better there as the winds shift and the smoke from the ever growing fire cells move with them towards the city.

I didn’t get the text to evacuate, just heard about it on Facebook of all places. These events have taken me by surprise. In the 30 odd years that I have lived in the region such intensity of disaster has never happened; I am unprepared as I never thought our town would be threatened. I haven’t packed. Would Watkins know what my precious things are? Where they are?

Now that I can think more calmly,what would I pack in my tiny car? photos? My bookbinding toolbox – toolboxes? What could I leave behind? All those gold tooling tools? I have hundreds of books – I think I would limit my self to 5: Bookbinding books below, plus Andrew Crawford’s Book of Boxes and a book on the history of printing.

I would also save two cook books: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the Bertholle and Child book which I have had for years and Pellaprat’s La cuisine familiale et pratique – oh dear I have already gone over my quota.

What about the novels? What about my comic books? What about my records? What about them?

Life matters, not stuff. We put up posts about saving water, saving animals, saving this and that, but when the times of bounty come back this will all be forgotten.

Pause.

I just had a pause in the writing; I was going to rabbit on about a whole load of negative things that we humans do, have done, keep doing. Then my mind wandered to what we can do and what we do best as humans: we keep going.

Let’s not have a blame game when all this fire craziness is over. Let’s take a long, good look at ourselves. And that means the governments as well; not just in Australia, but everywhere. Humans do get up out of the mud and the ashes and they rise again, but we need to do it better.

Each community cell needs to take stock and decide where their future lies. I can only speak for my little Braidwood cell: let’s become self sufficient. We can do the slow food. We can do the energy self sustainability. We can have affordable energy passive housing. How do I know we can? Because some of us already do it. Even though we belong to a larger super-shire that doesn’t seem to care about us, we can just forge on. If you are reading this post in some foreign country, in your part of the world you can forge on. None of us need all that single use plastic.We don’t need all those cosmetics either. Hey, don’t get me wrong I like face and hand cream but do I really believe that nano-beads are going to make me younger? Do you? Does anyone? I believe the nano beads are going to get swallowed by the fish that I won’t be able to eat.

It is grey here; Life is slow at the moment. In many ways I prefer this pace,because I don’t miss the intense tourist traffic. However I do miss the talk on the street, people greeting each other in the coffee shops and general village hustle and bustle. There are no children running about looking for the hidden books, not many people walking their dogs. This festive season will be lean and quiet.

I am making only one gift this Christmas: to the Braidwood children. I am going to use my skills to get them to write their stories and then make a little book (Yes this blog is about bookbinding afterall). Cath at the local library has donated the venue. This is something that they will keep forever and that they could use every day if they wished.  Just to show that anyone can make a book. Anyone’s story is as good as anyone else’s, and if you can make a small book, with a bit of training you can produce a bigger book.

I needed to have a rant. It could well be that the children will need to also have a rant and a rave, and they can do that by writing it all down.

Where ever you are stay safe and have a happy end of year.

The find of the week – January

It is saturday and I am writing this quickly before I start making the custard for the ice cream…

When I first started the search for watermarks every little grape and heart and crown was exciting. Now I have the “oh that’s only a heart” attitude. When there are no watermark, there is a little sense of outrage. Anyhoo…this week, this is what I found:

A unicorn, well at least two parts of him. His op half was in the flyleaf of volume 1 and the bottom part was in the back fly of volume 3 of

Historia theologico-critica de vita, scriptis, atque doctrina sanctorum patrum : aliorumque scriptorum ecclesiasticorum trium primorum saeculorum ex virorum doctissimorum literariis monumentis collecta (RB JES 4979) at the National Library, printed in Augsburg in 1783

Unicorn on edge of cross grain paper, with belt and ornament

bottom quarter of the unicorn in vol3

 

Just as with the Virgin Mary in a previous post, I have searched online databases and all the books I can get my hands on, to no avail. So if anyone can tell me if they have seen this same unicorn, I would be most grateful.

Dos a dos binding

This is my project book of the research I am currently undertaking. It is easy to carry around: 150 bindings and 260 watermarks! I’ll be giving this to my friend Fabienne when she visits from Montevideo….

Next…I found two jokers in the same book. This has happened to me before in The History of the Plot. These two came from :

The primitive origination of mankind, considered and examined according to the light of nature / written by the honourable Sir Matthew Hale (RBfCLI 4016) printed in London 1677.

Joker with diagonal braid

Joker with horizontal braid

I am getting my son Max to photoshop all my watermarks so that they are clearer. This is hard to see. But once your eye is trained you can see any number of details.

And lastly, please find below a man on a horse. They are also sometimes called picadors. I found him in:

Mellificium theologicum ad dispatandum et concionandum proficuum… : Colligente & producente m. Johanne Binchio (RB De vesci 920)

This was printed in Amsterdam in 1658.

I  am currently just collecting data and putting them in a book. This really has made my week!

cheers

 

The Virgin Mary’s book

I have been collecting binding data ever since 2013, and in July’s post I showed you a watermark of the Virgin holding Baby Jesus. Since then I have scoured online databases and books, without being able to find an exact match. They are not very common, but this particular image remains a mystery.

Ful lleather cover sewn on 3 double cord support

Side view

Cover

Frontispiece

Detail of frontispiece

Detail of capitalised letter

This is RB MISC 3181 – Ignatii Coutino … : mariale, sive conciones super evangelia festivitatum sacratissimae Virginis Mariae / quas ex idiomate Hispanico in Latinum transtulit Henricus Hechtermans in the National Library of Australia catalogue.

Last year I enrolled in 4 units of Harvard’s online course, The Book: Histories through time and space. One course I particularly liked was Print and Manuscript in Western Europe, Asia and the Middle East (1450-1650). Since the beginning of the year I have ramped up my research, and because of the course I now pay much closer attention to the content. And I am finding frontispieces, layouts and vignettes much more fascinating.

I am in the process of writing a bindings catalogue of the rare book stack, and a watermark compendium. As I find interesting and wonderful items I will keep you posted.

What’s wrong with this book, part secundus.

Two versions

“It’s alright like that; it’ll look handmade.”

How many times have I heard these words uttered by students, and even occasionally by myself?

The point that many people don’t make is that to make it handmade means that one wants to make it better than a machine.

I used to spin wool. I left irregular lumps in it because I couldn’t control the tension. My excuse was same as above: it would look earthy, handmade, natural. As I watched the old women around me spin fine wool, and as my control became better I realised where the challenge lay.

From a distance those two books in the picture above don’t look too bad. However  they are disappointing. I’m onto a third version now. All three are hand painted. I recently sent the last version to a competition so I can’t show it to you. It wasn’t too bad; still looked handpainted. I’ll post photos when it comes back.

I suppose it’s all about the expectations in my own head; my skills are a lot better in my own mind than in reality. I’m always flicking through fine bookbinding books; I want to do something like that one day, sooner rather than later. I am still in the practising phase, even though I learned bookbinding many years ago. However I probably haven’t even reached a thousand hours of (design) binding; I muck about in the evenings and on week ends.

I recently covered a paperback in leather. Why would I bother you may well ask; because I wanted the practise. Until recently I only used cloth and paper. So in order to practise I bought some cheap leather. I figured I would hone my skills on cheaper material before using the good stuff.

Wrong! It is not enjoyable to try to pare crap leather. I have persevered; I am putting a split board onto the paperback, but it is still not sufficiently pared at the turn ins, and looks ugly. And yet still I will continue to the completion for two reasons: firstly for the exercise. I’ll try leather mosaic. Secondly because I want to finish it. The effort I am now putting into making templates and planning the design will hopefully translate itself into better skills for the next book.

It is one of my favourite children’s books, and I’ll give it away to the Little Free Library once it is built. It isn’t as ugly as all that hopefully no other binder will see it. It’ll look handmade. Haha.

A year of teaching

The end of the school year is looming; this week is my last class at CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology). I inherited a class of my very own at the beginning of the year. How lucky am I?

Neale had actually thrown me in the deep end last year when he suggested to the vocational course co-ordinator from tech that I could so some casual replacements. Neale, colleague and mentor, was my first teacher in 2006. I’m still a newbie myself and so it was with some trepidation that I did a few replacements for Sally, and when she decided to hang up her bonefolder, the college offered me the job.

My inheritance included messy cupboards full of half finished work from bygone students, some sad looking brushes and glue pots and a jumble of papers and book cloth. This space is shared with the screen printers, and more often than not there is ink left on the tables.

Cleaned out cupboards

Every Thursday Bookcraft services experienced binders who come in to do their own projects and beginners who come bright eyed to discover how a book is made. It’s been going for years, and has more or less remained in the same format. Unfortunately we are now in separate rooms and the newcomers don’t get the benefit of watching the more experienced binders at work.

I’m new, keen and have a plan. Actually, it’s Neale’s plan; I basically devised an eight week course that mirrored what he taught me. I had found his teaching schedule useful and great because it took me slowly from the basics, like finding the grain of cloth and paper to making a book of my very own, like a bought one.

In my first class I inherited 2 new students. I simply continued from where they had started; the next term I had a full class of 7 plus more return students. My class plans aimed to get the students to go home with a finished product at the end of every week. The tasks get progressively harder, building on skills learned the previous week.

I love teaching beginners; I love showing them basics ways of making a book, of sewing a few folios together and getting something worthwhile.

Throughout the year I get a different bunch of students; I teach them a bunch of stuff from my plan; I hone down the teaching palaber until I find the correct words, the words that they will understand, that will make them do the task more easily. Teaching makes me better understand what I am doing.

Mostly I enjoy meeting new and different personalities. I try to remember their names; I think the more new people you meet, the easier it becomes. Bookbinding attracts a certain type of person: not so much fussy as patient and who pays attention to detail. Some people have more hand dexterity than others; some are more artistically inclined.

I’ve learned that I can’t push the students too fast; they will work at their own pace and the class plan seems to grow organically.

Alf waiting for his book

Historically bookbinding was a man’s trade. Now it seems this art is, in this country at least and in my classes, dominated by women. We’d like to have more men, I think it changes the dynamic. Ultimately though, the tasks at hand make us silent. There’ll be a brief flurry of conversation, and before concentration takes over once more. Cheese is de rigueur at teatime. Here we gather with the more experienced clan: Peter and Helen reminisce over the good old days with Neale, and I talk about the future. Over cheese and a cup of tea we find out how each of us came to binding, what makes us tick.

I have further plans for this course. I’d like to start a continuing class on another day, where I would have the occasional guest teacher showing them something wonderful. I would like to make an excursion to the Canberra Bookbinders Guild (who meet on Thursdays!). I don’t want to keep just teaching beginners because I know I will reach a saturation point; if I see that they are heading in a direction, that there is a better goal for them to achieve, then we will have more and better skilled bookbinders and the art won’t die. The powers that be just need to give me a classroom.

Boxes: I gave up wood for paper

There is something delicious about small boxes. I became a woodworker because I wanted my father to teach me how to make chairs.

He and I shared a workshop, and he taught me a lot. He is a tool maker,  and made a lot of the machinery and jigs we used.

Those were great times, making frames and then discovering the joys of boxes. I love small things, small places in which you can hide stuff. I taught myself with books, my very first one being Andrew Crawford’s “Book of boxes”.

I have always had wild ideas about spaces; I like to find hidey holes, and crazy but useful shapes. After all, the boxes needed to be useful.  But I digress. As the years moved on, and I had a little shop of my own, my life changed, as life does, I found myself without a workshop, without inspiration.

A course was on offer at the local technical college. It was during the day, which suited me, and I met Neale Wootton, who has become a mentor to me over the years. I think upon those classes with fond memories; he had a great plan and dry sense of humour. He was a bit scary, in that very knowledgeable kind of way.

That course opened a magical door. It was very exciting to be able to make REAL books; books with cloth cases, not just sewn pamphlets. Since those early days I haven’t made as many books as I would have liked. I haven’t learnt many techniques either; as a bookbinder in a large institution, I now repair books.

However, I’ve just inherited the class at tech, and I will endeavour to instill in my students the inspiration that Neale instilled in me, and on the way I also hope to become a more imaginative binder.  And I still make boxes.