Print on Paper to Parchment MS Transition
Entering the realm of manuscript texts on parchment takes us back about 1000
years beyond the most common paper manuscripts, which were produced in the
C14-15 (though some as early as the 1200s may exist). As in the case of
the "Paper Museum" class, in which I was trying to sensitize your eyes and
fingers and nose etc. to the varieties of paper weights, textures, and
materials, the Parchment Museum class is a bodily experience designed to help
you learn to operate parchment as a material on which texts were preserved. In
both cases, this knowledge will make you a scholar in whom rare book librarians
and collectors will be willing to put their trust when you handle their prized
treasures. You have to know what to expect old paper and parchment to be,
in all stages and varieties of their preservation. Clarkson's "The Nature
of the Beast" essay will begin educating you about the peculiar consequences we
face when using texts conserved on parchment, and the museum will help you learn
to see and feel a parchment document's origins and past in its current state of
preservation. We have some exceptionally fine, aesthetically beautiful
pieces of parchment in the museum, some good, work-aday documents, and some
pretty gnarly animals. The nature of the text preserved is not necessarily
congruent with the quality of parchment upon which it was written.
Remember, when dealing with artifacts, that current state of preservation, or even the value of the materials used at the time of creation, are no sure measure of the value of the artifact or its meaning. An emperor's bowel movements might be recorded in golden ink on parchment dyed imperial purple with colors made from the most rare sea creatures, whereas divine wisdom might be scratched on the poorest scraps of paper or parchment or stone or baked earth. For now, let's open our minds to the range of what parchment can be and let "value" take care of itself. That will prepare us to learn all that we can as a class from Manuscript Lab 1a.