When I looked up "membrane" in the OED after Helmut's comment in the Glossary post I found:
- A pliable sheet-like structure acting as a boundary, lining, or partition in an organism.
- A thin pliable sheet of material forming a barrier or lining.
‘the concrete should include a membrane to prevent rising damp’
- Biology A microscopic double layer of lipids and proteins forming the boundary of cells or organelles.
The second meaning of membrane is the one I associate with it, as used in the building trade etc. I'm not familiar with it as used in the context of writing material. Since it's quite a technical usage that Diane has given it (and I'm not disputing it for one moment as I originally used the term in my first definition, I can easily assume that parchment makers would refer to the
membrane rather than saying, say,
skin) I avoided the whole sticky dispute by using the more generic term "animal skin". Far easier to understand, means the same thing and avoids confusion.
Let's not get personal over this rather trivial matter.
Peter,
This is a technical subject, and so what's needed is a technical definition - not just the OED's.
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Rene,
Sorry to pull rank on you, but you have neither qualifications nor experience in this field and, as it happens, I do. Your impression of what professional conservators say, or whether they use such terms as 'substrate' or 'vellum' often, or not often, or only in particular circumstances seems to have been gained locally and at second hand. In any case, it is a mistaken impression.
To speak of 'parchment' is inappropriate in describing a particular manuscript, whose bifolia are made of vellum. Not of 'animal skin' and not of 'calf skin' and not of 'parchment'. These particular bifolia are of coarse vellum, and there is absolutely no point to using other than the correct term.
Calling it anything else can only obscure the fact that this material, to this level of finish, and made to these dimensions do not indicate manufacture in 'central Europe' as your theory has it.
(10-10-2016, 01:29 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sorry to pull rank on you,
Sorry, not accepted.
For all other matters I am happy to refer to the last line of You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. .
(10-10-2016, 01:29 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene,
Sorry to pull rank on you, but you have neither qualifications nor experience in this field and, as it happens, I do.
Diane,
Would you refresh my memory - what were your qualifications and experience? You could just update your Introducing Researchers profile, so we don't impose on this thread.
(10-10-2016, 01:29 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Peter,
This is a technical subject, and so what's needed is a technical definition - not just the OED's.
_______________
Rene,
Sorry to pull rank on you, but you have neither qualifications nor experience in this field and, as it happens, I do. Your impression of what professional conservators say, or whether they use such terms as 'substrate' or 'vellum' often, or not often, or only in particular circumstances seems to have been gained locally and at second hand. In any case, it is a mistaken impression.
To speak of 'parchment' is inappropriate in describing a particular manuscript, whose bifolia are made of vellum. Not of 'animal skin' and not of 'calf skin' and not of 'parchment'. These particular bifolia are of coarse vellum, and there is absolutely no point to using other than the correct term.
Calling it anything else can only obscure the fact that this material, to this level of finish, and made to these dimensions do not indicate manufacture in 'central Europe' as your theory has it.
If it is incorrect to refer to vellum as "parchment" then is it incorrect to refer to a dictionary as a "book"?
It is my understanding that one is a subset of the other and which one you choose depends on the specificity of the discussion.
Quote:It is my understanding that one is a subset of the other and which one you choose depends on the specificity of the discussion.
Correct. And in speaking specifically of Beinecke MS 408 the description is correctly 'vellum'.
What was meant is that while there is (apparently) no consensus between all of us that the VMS is "vellum", consensus will be there if we chacracterize it in a more general way - namely, as "parchment", since "vellum" is a subset of "parchment". Vellum is always parchment (while parchment is not always vellum).
Characterizing the VMS as "parchment" does not negate the statement that it is vellum, it just considers the latter statement as indefinite.
It's much like that we all (seem to, there's been no poll yet
) agree that the VMS is a "manuscript", but there will be much disagreement if we descend to more specifical definitions - e.g., if one characterizes it as a "herbal", then many will disagree.
Or, as another example, like
-JKP- points out, if there's no agreement upon whether a book is a dictionary, the safe way is to speak of a "book", and not of a "dictionary".
Anton,
There is no doubt at all that the material is vellum. It is not uterine vellum, but vellum none the less. Parchment may be made from the skins of sheep or goats, but vellum is always from the skin of calves.
For various reasons, the nature and quality of the material impacts on theories about provenance, and using the general term 'parchment' serves to obscure the flaws in certain theories about the manuscript, as does glossing over the degree of finish for the vellum.
One may say of a manuscript made in an Aegean island, in the eastern Mediterranean, in Spain, England or Germany that it is on 'parchment' but to say it is on perfectly equalised vellum dating to the 12thC (for example) would strongly limit the range within which it could have been made. Accepting that the Vms was made before 1440, and on relatively coarse vellum (as it is) limits the regions and likely makers.. directly impacting on theories about it.
But that's why, as I see it, we should not speak of 'parchment' but be quite specific, just as we should be specific about the style of binding (which Touwaide sees as Italian style) and as specific as we can be about the style of script. It would be careless just to talk generally of "European" binding, or "European" handwriting - and just so it is careless to speak of 'parchment'.
All these things are important criteria to provenancing, and failing to be precise can only mislead those who come later.