Dimensions and trimming of the MS

[-JKP-]

Rene,

May I ask when you performed that set of comparisons?
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I admit that I cannot see any purpose in limiting the study to European herbals, since paper and vellum-sizes are a codicological issue, and only tangentially related to whatever is set on the page.

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In his post, René wrote that he did the comparisons in 2010.


How do you know René limited the study to European herbals?

He said he researched herbals, he didn't say "European" herbals, and he was probably constrained to the ones in which the bibliographers recorded the sizes (not all bibliographies include this information), plus there was much less information in 2010 than there is now. It's also possible he chose those that are created in a similar way (on parchment). I don't know if this last is true (I haven't had time to check the whole list), but it doesn't hurt to define our terms when we evaluate this kind of list.


As for the issue of parchment or paper...

Many Arabic herbal manuscripts, such as MS Leiden Or.289, Walters MS W.675 (1224 CE), etc., are written on paper (usually thick laid) and you yourself pointed out that many eastern manuscripts are written on other materials like bamboo. Thai and other eastern manuscripts tend to be long and narrow as befits the writing medium and don't resemble the proportions of vellum documents. Arabic scribes have been using paper since around the 9th century.

I couldn't find information on whether al-Ghafiqi's (13th c) herbal is parchment or paper, but a Baghdad copy of it done in the 14th century is on thick oriental paper (the paper in those days was often two sheets laminated together, so the process of creating it was very different from the preparation of parchment).

It seems unlikely the VMS scribes went to the tanner and said, "Please give me pieces of vellum that are the same proportions as paper manuscripts written in Arabic." They probably used what was available.


Rather than criticizing René for deliberately leaving out non-European herbals (you don't know if he "limited the study" to European herbals, you are only assuming that), we can thank him for sharing his list (that fact that you've also made a list is a good thing, not a bad thing, in science, cross-checking should be considered an asset not a turf-war). Why don't you give examples of non-European herbal manuscripts written on parchment that include dimensions and add to the list if you think it's too Euro-centric? It's a more positive way to contribute.