The Voynich Ninja

(27-08-2020, 03:51 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Sure, but that is why my main question was whether you ever found any reference to any storage (medium- to long-term).

I have seen many references to large projects, where 50 or even 200 manuscripts were commissioned in order to build a library (apparently by commissioners with deep pockets). I've also seen numerous estimates of how many skins this would require.

But I have never seen any information on how long it was stored. It might be days, weeks, or months. I don't know. I have seen archaeological mentions that parchment and quills were vulnerable to rats.

As mentioned in my first post, if the patron was sometimes expected to bring the writing medium, it suggests the scribes did not have a storehouse.




From a practical standpoint, it seems to me that you could fill a page with text faster than you could produce the parchment on which to write it. There are also many documents written on fragments. It's possible that the demand was greater than the supply, in which case very little would have been stored for any length of time.


________
For interest's sake, here is an illustration of a parchmenter's shop. Assuming it is accurate, it shows how they bundled the skins, in blocks and rolls. I don't know how they calculated the amount to put in a bundle (or whether they were willing to break up the bundles into smaller lots):

Source: Bologna, University Library. Cod. Bonon. 963
Source: Hamburg Bible

One should consider that we are not talking about trees but about animals.
1 cow, 12 months gestation period, 1 calf, min.1 year to slaughter. Female calves go into milk production. From calf to calf 2 years
You can't just come and say, I need 20 calves quickly - I am writing a book.
Think about what we are talking about here.

The real question then is who was having books of parchment made? Did the various royal and noble houses provide the materials, or just pay for them? Obviously the church would be providing its own materials.

There are 213 books in the KBR library and they come from a variety of sources. Many of the later ones were commissioned by Philip the Good. Did he provide the parchment? And there are earlier books given by Christine de Pizan. Who provided her with parchment?

Did VMs parchment come from a  church related source or from commercial book production?

In my view VMs dating is not as solid as some would like it to be. Putting the four C-14 results into a single sample assumption is one way to look at the data, but it is not the only way to interpret the data. The most recent of the four results could be indicative of a second production of parchment. In which case, the finished production date for the VMs would need to be moved to the more recent dating. In addition, three potential historical markers in the VMs: (Melusine [specifically as portrayed in Harley 334 f 57, a copy of de Metz, produced in Paris in 1430-1440], the Golden Fleece (1430) and la Sainte Hostie de Dijon (1434) , *if accepted*), suggest that the earliest production date is in the mid 1430s.

The parchment industry in medieval times does not seem to be a well studied topic.
This is the best i could find, its quite interesting but not hugely relevant.
Manuscript Production in Medieval Winchester :You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Quote:Another issue is the predilection of Italy for using  parchment, while Germany preferred paper for reasons we do not know, there was an extensive trade and this is one of the reasons  why I think the ms. was written in Italy

Parchment required a tradition and a profession, whereas paper was a disruptive technology that won in places where the guilds were not strong. As you said, it was easier to print on paper, so the new printing technology (and lack of a guild to stop things) meant paper mills were quickly setup across central Europe.

Yes, this may have meant that parchment was cheap (for lack of a market).

The "invention" and spreading of printing is of great interest by itself, but not relevant for the Voynich MS.
The preference to use paper vs. parchment at the beginning of the 15th century, on the other hand, is very relevant.

All this has undoubtedly been studied, but the results are hardly known to the Voynich community, including myself.

Various bits and pieces are of course well known, among others that a number of the Gutenberg bibles were printed, in Germany, in the 1450's on parchment. That is just one 'observation point'.

Was it the need to have a large fold-out that influenced the choice to go for parchment?
This is also just speculation. There are plenty of manuscripts that consist of a combination of paper and parchment, so also that would have been possible.

I have recorded more than 3,000 manuscripts that relate to the VMS in one way or another.

Of these, I have recorded the writing medium for about 2200 manuscripts.

If I filter for those that are between 1300 and 1510, all of them are skin until 1335, with one exception of circa 1310 from Germany (I'll have to double-check the source to make sure it is actually paper).

As of 1337, in this group, there are a few paper manuscripts from Bohemia. However, the majority are still skin until 1350, at which point there is one paper manuscript from Italy and one from Germany.

Then skin again until 1360 when there is one that is though to be from Germany.

Skin again, then there are three paper manuscripts from 1374 Bohemia and one from 1377 Bohemia (these dates are approximate). At this point the proportion of skin to paper is about 3:1.

In circa the early 1380s, there are three paper manuscripts from Italy, five from Germany/Alsace. In the late 1380s or so, another one from Italy.

By 1390s or so, paper manuscripts begin to increase. One from Alsace, six from Italy, three from Germany, one from Schwabia, one from Bohemia.
This continues in the early 1400s... one from England, seven from Alsace/Germany, two from Bavaria, one from Silesia, two from Prague.

1410s, one from Italy, 1 from Bohemia, one from France, thirteen from Germany/Alsace, one from France.

1420s and 1430s, now the amount of paper increases and includes the above countries. The balance between paper and skin is now almost 50/50 which is a distinct change from the previous years.

This continues until 1440, when paper begins to exceed skin by about 2:1. This proportion continues until the early 16th century. Parchment does not seem to drop off sharply until after 1540. Then all the ones I have recorded are on paper. Parchment was still used occasionally, but paper had pretty much taken over.

(28-08-2020, 06:33 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The most recent of the four results could be indicative of a second production of parchment.

There is of course a 'most recent' sample by definition, but the four samples are all fully consistent within the accuracy of the method. They are all fully equivalent, from a statistical point of view.

A full sheet of a Gutenberg Bible was 42 x 60 cm  and this is not the biggest paper size produced at the time, paper would have been much more useful for the foldouts

And as I said before, Germany was rather using paper, Italy  parchment, there was not an overall preference for paper and there seems not to have been a scarcity of writing materials and high prices, it was rather the opposite

Judith Flanders quoting Griffiths and Persall "Book production and publishing in Britain: 1375-1475" says:

Quote:By the end of the 14th century, a quire (25 sheets) of paper cost the same as a single skin of parchment, and had 8 times the writing surface. By the end of the 15th century, the price was a quarter of what it had been.

Paper was also of a constant quality, whereas parchment would vary in quality across a skin.

Parchment was still mainly used in manuscripts because of its perceived quality, but paper was in common use for notebooks and accounting purposes.

And remember that early books, incunables, were deliberately designed to mimic manuscripts, with initials and illustrations being hand added around the printed sections to make them feel familiar to the purchaser.