In the 16th and 17th centuries, bookbinders frequently reinforced book bindings with pieces of parchment cut from old medieval manuscripts. Due to the high cost of new parchment, this practice of “ recycling » led to the fragmentation and disappearance of many manuscripts, now hidden in bindings.
Today, the value of an old book often rests on its age and its autograph character. Although medieval manuscripts were once very valuable, their importance largely declined after Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. Many of them were destroyed, torn, boiled or burned to fuel the presses or serve as support for the binding of new printed works. This practice was so common that approximately 150 early printed books from the Yale Law Library contain fragments of medieval texts, for example.
Thijs Porck, associate professor of medieval English literature at Leiden University, relied on an endoscopic camera to capture images of the inside of the bindings of several ancient books. Originally designed to inspect gun barrels, thanks to its reduced diameter and its mirrors, this tool has proven ideal for carrying out “ endoscopic surgery » on these works.
With the assistance of his colleague Iris van Kuijk, videos of the interiors of several books were recorded in the library of the University of Leiden and at the archives of the Noord-Hollands Archief in Haarlem. Screenshots from these videos were then stitched together to reveal the repurposed medieval fragments.
Using this technique, the academic highlighted fragments of a Book of Hours by Geert Groote dating from around 1400. This fragment contains an inscription in Middle Dutch: “ my mont sal voyants praise. God wants Deancke. » (My mouth will proclaim your praise. May God be thanked).
Among the discoveries is also a musical fragment from the 14th century, containing notes from alleluiatic verse – Gregorian melismatic chant accompanying the alleluia in the Christian liturgy -, found in a book in the Haarlem archives.
inside Haarlem, Noord-Hollands Archief,
165 G 5. University of Leiden
The method FragmEndoscopy stands out for its effectiveness, simplicity and low cost. Unlike previous techniques involving X-rays, such as macro or parchment -, and long and expensive analyses, the use of an endoscopic camera allows images to be captured in a few minutes, for less than 600 euros. Reconstructing the images only takes a few hours.
The results of this research, as well as the method used, were published in the scientific journal Fragmentology.
-New discoveries
These manuscript fragments were also used to stiffen Buckram clothing, make bookmarks or even toilet paper. Paradoxically, this recycling has made it possible to preserve texts that would otherwise have disappeared.
Ces « stowaways » help to better understand incomplete texts, their distribution, their date of creation or even to reconstruct them. However, binders, often unintentionally, complicated the researchers’ task by cutting up the columns of text in a frustrating way…
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Recent advances have made it possible to reveal erased texts, such as extracts from the star catalog of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus dating from the 2nd century BC, or even ancient medical treatises and texts by major figures of the Antiquity, like Plato, offering a new look at the written heritage of humanity.
Photo credits: A Middle Dutch fragment (“ my mont sal voyants praise. God wants Deancke ») inside Leiden, UB, 617 F 19; at the origin of a manuscript of Book of Hours de Geert Groote, ca. 1400. Université de Leyde
By Hocine Bouhadjera
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