A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript

[LisaFaginDavis]

There are plenty of accounting records that record how much a particular person paid for a particular amount of parchment at a particular place and time, but it is really hard to generalize. Unless we know specifically when and where the VMS was created, we simply cannot estimate how much the materials cost. 

My work suggests that the manuscript was produced by a community, in which case it is certainly quite possible that - whoever they were - they may have made their own parchment (and their own ink, and their own pigments). The parchment is of such low quality that it seems more than likely to me that it was produced in-house, using around fourteen calfskins or so. It's thick and uneven, roughly-textured, with numerous flaws and signs of animality. Absolutely not the kind of material you would pay top-dollar for. High-end fifteenth-century parchment is thin, smooth, creamy, and flawless. By comparison, the VMS parchment is a mess.