![Magna Carta (British Library Cotton MS Augustus II](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Magna_Carta_%28British_Library_Cotton_MS_Augustus_II.106%29.jpg)
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as
writing material
Writing material refers to the materials that provide the surfaces on which humans use writing instruments to inscribe writings. The same materials can also be used for symbolic or representational drawings. Building material on which writings or ...
.
Parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...
is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from
calfskin
Calfskin or calf leather is a leather or membrane produced from the hide of a calf, or juvenile domestic cattle. Calfskin is particularly valuable because of its softness and fine grain, as well as durability. It is commonly used for high-quality ...
, as opposed to that made from other animals,
or otherwise being of higher quality. Vellum is prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls,
codices
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
, or books.
Modern scholars and custodians increasingly use only the less specific, potentially-confusing term "membrane".
[Stokes and Almagno 2001, 114][Clemens and Graham 2007, pp. 9–10.] Depending on factors such as the method of preparation it may be very hard to determine the animal species involved (let alone its age) without using a laboratory, and the term avoids the need to distinguish between vellum and parchment.
Vellum is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation and the quality of the skin. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame (a "herse"), and scraping of the skin with a crescent-shaped knife (a "lunarium" or "
lunellum
A lunellum is a crescent-shaped knife that was used in medieval times to prepare parchment. The word is derived from the Latin ''luna'' (moon) because of its shape. The tool is used for the purpose of scraping off (''scudding'') remaining tissue ...
"). To create tension, scraping is alternated with wetting and drying. A final finish may be achieved by abrading the surface with
pumice
Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicular vol ...
, and treating with a preparation of lime or chalk to make it accept writing or printing ink.
Modern "paper vellum" is made of synthetic plant material, and is called such for its usage and quality similarities. Paper vellum is used for a variety of purposes including tracing, technical drawings, plans and
blueprint
A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets. Introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the process allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number ...
s.
Terminology
![Qur'anic Manuscript - 3 - Hijazi script](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Qur%27anic_Manuscript_-_3_-_Hijazi_script.jpg)
The word "vellum" is borrowed from
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
''vélin'' 'calfskin', derived in turn from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word ''vitulinum'' 'made from calf'. However, in Europe, from Roman times, the word was used for the best quality of prepared skin, regardless of the animal from which the hide was obtained.
Calf
Calf most often refers to:
* Calf (animal), the young of domestic cattle.
* Calf (leg), in humans (and other primates), the back portion of the lower leg
Calf or calves may also refer to:
Biology and animal byproducts
* Veal, meat from calves
* ...
,
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...
, and
goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...
were all commonly used, and other animals, including pig, deer, donkey, horse, or camel were used on occasion. The best quality, "uterine vellum", was said to be made from the skins of
stillborn
Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The term i ...
or unborn animals, although the term was also applied to fine quality skins made from young animals.
However, there has long been much blurring of the boundaries between these terms. In 1519,
William Horman
William Horman (c. 1440 – April 1535) was a headmaster at Eton and Winchester College in the early Tudor period of English history.
He is best known for his Latin grammar textbook the ''Vulgaria'', which created controversy at the time due to ...
could write in his ''Vulgaria'': "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan." Writing in 1936, Lee Ustick explained that:
French sources, closer to the original etymology, tend to define ''velin'' as from calf only, while the
British Standards Institution
The British Standards Institution (BSI) is the national standards body of the United Kingdom. BSI produces technical standards on a wide range of products and services and also supplies certification and standards-related services to business ...
defines parchment as made from the split skin of several species, and vellum from the unsplit skin. In the usage of modern practitioners of the artistic crafts of writing, illuminating, lettering, and bookbinding, "vellum" is normally reserved for calfskin, while any other skin is called "parchment".
Manufacture
![Portolan by Jacobus Russus of Messina 1533](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Portolan_by_Jacobus_Russus_of_Messina_1533.jpg)
Vellum is a translucent material produced from the skin, often split, of a young animal. The skin is washed with water and lime (
Calcium hydroxide
Calcium hydroxide (traditionally called slaked lime) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca( OH)2. It is a colorless crystal or white powder and is produced when quicklime (calcium oxide) is mixed or slaked with water. It has m ...
). It is then soaked in lime for several days to soften and remove the hair.
Once clear, the two sides of the skin are distinct: the side facing inside the animal and the hair side. The "inside body side" of the skin is usually the lighter and more refined of the two. The hair follicles may be visible on the outer side, together with any scarring made while the animal was alive. The membrane can also show the pattern of the animal's vein network called the "veining" of the sheet.
Any remaining hair is removed ("scudding") and the skin is dried by attaching it to a frame (a "herse").
[Clemens and Graham 2007, p. 11.] The skin is attached at points around the circumference with cords; to prevent tearing, the maker wraps the area of the skin to which the cord is to be attached around a pebble (a "pippin").
The maker then uses a crescent shaped knife, (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"), to clean off any remaining hairs.
Once the skin is completely dry, it is thoroughly cleaned and processed into sheets. The number of sheets extracted from the piece of skin depends on the size of the skin and the given dimensions requested by the order. For example, the average calfskin could provide roughly three and a half medium sheets of writing material. This can be doubled when it is folded into two conjoint leaves, also known as a bifolium. Historians have found evidence of manuscripts where the scribe wrote down the medieval instructions now followed by modern membrane makers.
[Thompson, Daniel. "Medieval Parchment-Making". The Library 16, no. 4 (1935).] The membrane is then rubbed with a round, flat object ("pouncing") to ensure that the ink would adhere to the surface.
Even so, ink would gradually flake off of the membrane, especially if it was used in a scroll that was frequently rolled and unrolled.
Manuscripts
Preparing manuscripts
Once the vellum is prepared, traditionally a
quire is formed of a group of several sheets. Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham point out, in their ''Introduction to Manuscript Studies'', that "the quire was the scribe's basic writing unit throughout the Middle Ages". Guidelines are then made on the membrane. They note "'pricking' is the process of making holes in a sheet of parchment (or membrane) in preparation of its ruling. The lines were then made by ruling between the prick marks ...The process of entering ruled lines on the page to serve as a guide for entering text. Most manuscripts were ruled with horizontal lines that served as the baselines on which the text was entered and with vertical bounding lines that marked the boundaries of the columns".
Usage
Most of the finer sort of medieval manuscripts, whether
illuminated
Illuminated may refer to:
* "Illuminated" (song), by Hurts
* Illuminated Film Company, a British animation house
* ''Illuminated'', alternative title of Black Sheep (Nat & Alex Wolff album)
* Illuminated manuscript
See also
* Illuminate (disambi ...
or not, were written on vellum. Some
Gandharan Buddhist texts
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...
were written on vellum, and all
Sifrei Torah
A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tora ...
(Hebrew: ספר תורה Sefer Torah; plural: ספרי תורה, Sifrei Torah) are written on
kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
klaf
Klaf or Qelaf ( he, קְלָף) is the designation given a particular piece of skin. The Talmudic definition includes both the form of the skin and the way it is processed, in particular, that it must be tanned. Since the innovative ruling of ' ...
or vellum.
A quarter of the 180 copy edition of
Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (; – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who introduced letterpress printing to Europe with his movable type, movable-type printing press. Though not the first of its ki ...
's first
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
printed in 1455 with
movable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book. Paper was used for most book-printing, as it was cheaper and easier to process through a
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
and to
bind
BIND () is a suite of software for interacting with the Domain Name System (DNS). Its most prominent component, named (pronounced ''name-dee'': , short for ''name daemon''), performs both of the main DNS server roles, acting as an authoritative n ...
.
The twelfth century
Winchester Bible
The Winchester Bible is a Romanesque illuminated manuscript produced in Winchester between 1150 and 1175 for Winchester Cathedral. With folios measuring 583 x 396 mm., it is the largest surviving 12th-century English Bible. The bible belongs ...
was printed on 250 calfskins, with a need of over 2,000 hides to be collected for the preparation and creation of the bible.
In art, vellum was used for paintings, especially if they needed to be sent long distances, before
canvas
Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...
became widely used in about 1500, and continued to be used for drawings, and
watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
s.
Old master print
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of "fine art" produced in printmakin ...
s were sometimes printed on vellum, especially for presentation copies, until at least the seventeenth century.
Limp vellum Limp binding is a bookbinding method in which the book has flexible cloth, leather, vellum, or (rarely) paper sides. When the sides of the book are made of vellum, the bookbinding method is also known as limp vellum.
The cover is made with a single ...
or limp-parchment bindings were used frequently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and were sometimes
gilt but were also often not
embellished
In sewing and crafts, an embellishment is anything that adds design interest to the piece.
Examples in sewing and craft
* appliqué can be made by sewing machine of decorative techniques and or
* embroidery, done either by machine or by hand
* ...
. In later centuries vellum has been more commonly used like leather, that is, as the covering for stiff board bindings. Vellum can be stained virtually any color but seldom is, as a great part of its beauty and appeal rests in its faint grain and hair markings, as well as its warmth and simplicity.
Lasting in excess of 1,000 years—for example,
''Pastoral Care'' (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 504), dates from about 600 and is in excellent condition—animal vellum can be far more durable than paper. For this reason, many important documents are written on animal vellum, such as diplomas. Referring to a diploma as a "sheepskin" alludes to the time when diplomas were written on vellum made from animal hides.
Modern usage
British
Acts of Parliament
Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliament ...
are still printed on vellum for archival purposes, as are those of the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
. In February 2016, the UK
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
announced that legislation would be printed on archive paper instead of the traditional vellum from April 2016. However,
Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock
Matthew John David Hancock (born 2 October 1978) is a British politician who served as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January to July 201 ...
intervened by agreeing to fund the continued use of vellum from the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
budget. On 2017, the House of Commons Commission agreed that it would provide front and back vellum covers for record copies of Acts.
Today, because of low demand and complicated manufacturing process, animal vellum is expensive and hard to find. The only UK company still producing traditional parchment and vellum is William Cowley (established 1870), which is based in
Newport Pagnell
Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area.
It is separated from the rest of the urban ...
,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
. A modern imitation is made of
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
. Known as paper vellum, this material is considerably cheaper than animal vellum and can be found in most art and drafting supply stores. Some brands of
writing paper Printing and writing papers are paper grades used for newspapers, magazines, catalogs, books, notebooks, commercial printing, business forms, stationeries, copying and digital printing. About 1/3 of the total pulp and paper marked (in 2000) is prin ...
and other sorts of paper use the term "vellum" to suggest quality.
Vellum is still used for Jewish scrolls, of the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
in particular, for luxury book-binding, memorial books, and for various documents in
calligraphy
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
. It is also used on instruments such as the
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
and the
bodhran, although synthetic skins are available for these instruments and have become more commonly used.
The Catholic Church still issues its decrees and diplomas for its officials in Vellum.
Paper vellum
Modern imitation vellum is made from plasticized rag cotton or fibers from interior tree bark. Terms include: paper vellum, Japanese vellum, and vegetable vellum.
Paper vellum is usually translucent and its various
sizes
Size in general is the magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to linear dimensions (length, width, height, diameter, perimeter), area, or volume. Size can also be measu ...
are often used in applications where tracing is required, such as
architectural plan
In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure.
Dimensio ...
s. Its dimensions are more stable than a linen or paper sheet, which is frequently critical in the development of large scaled drawings such as
blueprint
A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets. Introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the process allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number ...
s. Paper vellum has also become extremely important in hand or chemical reproduction technology for dissemination of plan copies. Like a high-quality traditional vellum, paper vellum could be produced thin enough to be virtually
transparent
Transparency, transparence or transparent most often refer to:
* Transparency (optics), the physical property of allowing the transmission of light through a material
They may also refer to:
Literal uses
* Transparency (photography), a still, ...
to strong light, enabling a source drawing to be used directly in the reproduction of field-used drawings.
Preservation
Vellum is ideally stored in a stable environment with constant temperature and 30% (± 5%)
relative humidity
Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present.
Humidity depe ...
. If vellum is stored in an environment with less than 11% relative humidity, it becomes fragile, brittle, and susceptible to
mechanical stress
In continuum mechanics, stress is a physical quantity. It is a quantity that describes the magnitude of forces that cause deformation. Stress is defined as ''force per unit area''. When an object is pulled apart by a force it will cause elonga ...
es; if it is stored in an environment with greater than 40% relative humidity, it becomes vulnerable to
gelation
In polymer chemistry, gelation (gel transition) is the formation of a gel from a system with polymers. Branched polymers can form links between the chains, which lead to progressively larger polymers. As the linking continues, larger branched p ...
and to
mold
A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungus, fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of Spore#Fungi, spores containing Secondary metabolite#Fungal secondary metabolites, fungal seco ...
or
fungus
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from th ...
growth. Additionally, the relative humidity needed to properly store vellum is not compatible with optimal humidity level for storage of paper, which can pose a challenge for libraries.
The optimal temperature for the preservation of vellum is .
See also
*
History of hide materials
Humanity has used animal hides since the Paleolithic, for clothing as well as mobile shelters such as tipis and wigwams, and household items. Since ancient times, hides have also been used as a writing medium, in the form of parchment.
Fur clothin ...
*
Calfskin
Calfskin or calf leather is a leather or membrane produced from the hide of a calf, or juvenile domestic cattle. Calfskin is particularly valuable because of its softness and fine grain, as well as durability. It is commonly used for high-quality ...
*
Parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...
Notes
References
*
* Hepler, Dana J., Paul Ross Wallach, Donald Hepler, "Drafting" in ''Drafting and Design for Architecture & Construction'', 9th edition, 2012, Cengage Learning, , 9781111128135
Google Books*
* Stokes, Roy Bishop, Almagno, Romano Stephen, ''Esdaile's Manual of Bibliography'', 6th edition, 2001, Scarecrow Press, , 9780810839229
google books*
*
External links
text in French, but mostly visual.
{{Writing
Book design
Calligraphy
Hides (skin)
Writing media