The Voynich Ninja

Since the Poll thread has closed, I've started the thread to reply to the last comment made by Anton that

Quote:Anton:
After ...seven?.... years, nobody has yet been able to give me a concise professional definition of vellum

I thought I might pass on the British Library's concise definitions - accepting that customs differ in different countries and in different languages.  In fact, our habit is to refer more generally to 'membrane' unless specifically comparing that in one manuscript to another to aid provenancing - e.g. the French pocket bibles' vellum with that in the Vms.

Brit. Lib:

Quote:PARCHMENT:
A writing support material that derives its name from Pergamon (Bergama in modern Turkey), an early production centre. The term is often used generically to denote animal skin prepared to receive writing, although it is more correctly applied only to sheep and goat skin..

Quote:VELLUM:  the term vellum reserved for calfskin.

and UTERINE VELLUM:
Uterine vellum, the skin of stillborn or very young calves, is characterized by its small size and particularly fine, white appearance; however, it was rarely used.

Here again, customs differ. Our practice is to never write "calfskin" in that way; it is reserved - in our practice - for describing leather - e.g. a bag, a pair of shoes or book-binding is "calfskin" but membrane used for a manuscript''s bifolia is "vellum" or "calf-skin".

I notice that Helmut suggests that in his practice the term for 'vellum' has a much more restricted application than is found elsewhere - the British Library's descriptions being sufficient example. 

Hope that is concise enough.

Hi Diane,

The comment was not mine, but davidjackson's.

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So that should be a note for David rather

I also noted that the parchment poll thread was closed, but while the topic is still of interest, I was thinking about starting a new one. In order not to create a hydra, I assume that it will be OK to use this one for the general topic.

The outcome of the poll isn't entirely surprising. In my opinion the particular question that it intended to answer was one not really suitable for a public vote by people without the appropriate background. The opinion of one person with such background would be all that is needed.

One of the typical problems of such a discussion is, that often the right answers are provided in some people's contributions, but these are simply not recognised as such by other participants, and the discussion continues.

The question about parchment and vellum, which people think was not answered, is a case in point, and Helmut's remarks on this topic basically summarise the situation.

In 2014 I had the opportunity to sit opposite to two interesting people at a dinner table, namely the parchment maker Jesse Meyer, already mentioned a few times as the one identifying the species from which the cover of the Voynich MS was made, and conservator Abigail Quandt of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. She is known for her work on the Archimedes palimpsest, but she was also one of the key people exposing the 'Archaic Mark' as a (relatively) modern fake. Joe Barabe of McCrone was another.

When I told them that I had a general question about parchment, they both immediately guessed that it was about the terminology vellum vs. parchment. And they were right  

Even though they consider parchment from very different angles, and they had never met before, together they gave me a clear and consistent answer.
The etymology of the words parchment and vellum should be generally known I guess.

The first important point was, that usage has changed a lot over the years. In the past, vellum was used for parchment made of calf skin only. At times, it was also used for one of goat / sheep (I forget which) but not the other. It has at times been a point for discussion and disagreement among experts, and indeed, different parts of the world have adopted different definitions. In some areas, vellum was used to denote a higher quality parchment.

Since one may find all these different definitions in different places on the net, confusion is almost inevitable.

Abigail Quandt further clarified that, nowadays, the terms parchment and vellum can be used interchangeably in most parts of the world, though she cited the UK as an exception.

In neutral discussions, the term parchment can be used safely. I was happy to hear that since I had adopted that term for much the same reason on my web site.

Cheers Diane and Rene.

I think we can recommend on the forum that the term "parchment" be used exclusively, with the appropriate adjective if necessary (ie: limp parchment, goatskin, uterine or whatever).

Hide is a lot like hair. On average, children have more finely textured hair than adults, but there are also families (including the adults) with more finely textured hair than others.

I think of vellum in much the same way... as the finely textured version of parchment that is more often found in younger animals or in certain species.


It's not a black and white issue, but a gray scale, which is maybe why the definition isn't quite so hard and fast either. At what age does the skin of a certain animal toughen up? It depends on climate, diet, age, and individual differences and, of course, on species.

Rene,
Thank you for including the names of those two people.

I think that conversation will make clear why our own practice is to speak of "membrane" unless we are particularly addressing some issue where comparisons between specific manuscripts include reference to their being both of vellum, goat skin parchment etc.

Wouldn't it be nice if one of the essays in the forthcoming edition was a formal opinion by Quant? Or indeed by Barabe though I would understand if he felt he'd already done enough.

JKP

I understand your point of view, but if you'll forgive me, I'll continue to speak of it as relatively coarse vellum, since the issue relates directly to issues of comparative codicology and provenancing in this case.    Others, of course, may use more general terms - I'm not trying to legislate.

JKP and others interested in this subject -

I gather that some have not encountered use of the word 'membrane' as a generic term.

I didn't realise that it wasn't more widely known, but I guess it musn't be.

Here are a couple of references, anyway, which may help those feeling puzzled.

Marion Kite, Roy Thomson, Conservation of Leather and Related Materials (2006).  
- as example see Section 20.5.3  (p.211)


also - a bit puzzled about why the conversation took such a bizarre turn on another thread, where Winker (as usual) seemed to have no particular aim but thoroughly misrepresented the facts of the matter... I even checked the wiki article - to find that even there it says, quite plainly:

"It may be called animal membrane by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum".

- really.  And no-one thought to check before adopting hearsay offered on the list?

In the lab or in conversation, we usually assume that when the subject is a medieval manuscript the  "animal-" part can be omitted - taken for granted. So we just speak about "membrane".

What I really don't understand is why forum members rely so very much on hearsay...  there are technical articles and ~dictionaries.

I will admit that having endured seven solid years of Winker's efforts to pretend that I don't know what I'm talking about, I was rather hoping that he wouldn't migrate here from Santacoloma's list.  I daresay he hoped the opposite.


D

While Wikipedia is quite a useful resource, I wouldn't want to use it (generally) as the authoritative source for specialists.
In fact, its main problem is that it is variable - in some areas quite specialist, and in others no better than 'hearsay'.

In any case, on the term Parchment in wikipedia it does say "may be called", but in practice one sees that this is quite rare.

Both the term "membrane" and "substrate" tend to be used by specialists for parchment in very specific contexts, e.g. for the first term when highlighting that one is speaking about a very thin piece of animal skin, and for the second term when discussing the interaction with the ink.

Parchment is clearly preferred when one simply counts the occurrences in the more reliable sources (in case one would really want to do that).

Collins English Dictionary, first definition for membrane:

1. any thin pliable sheet of material
   

So this seems like a perfectly acceptable "catch all" term to refer to animal skins used for writing, even outside of a strictly professional environment.

1) Diane, I never pretend, I always feel sure

2) I use wikipedia like most people, but I don‘t depend on it for information as I don‘t depend on English language publications only

3) I know the use of membrane for parchment and I just wanted to know if it is correct usage (which I doubt), you could not use German Membran, which is basically the same word and meaning for Pergament