I had this thought experiment lately. Assuming that the VMS was not written in a scriptorium (i.e., not in an "official" place filled with dozens of professional scribes where one could easily notice that someone is writing a hundreds of pages of secret text in broad daylight), we could assume that it was written in a more secluded place, outside the scope of prying eyes. 

One way to do so could be to take the vellum from a scriptorium using theft, and then write the MS in a "safe place". After all, iron gall ink was not difficult to make "at home", so all that was needed for writing the manuscript DYI-style was a lot of vellum.

So I wonder, how easy would it be to steal 100 sheets of vellum from a scriptorium, and whether such a theft would go unnoticed (are 100 sheets "a lot" or "a little" in the scope of a professional workshop)? Would such a theft be recorded in the inventory of a scriptorium?

(8 hours ago)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I had this thought experiment lately. Assuming that the VMS was not written in a scriptorium (i.e., not in an "official" place filled with dozens of professional scribes where one could easily notice that someone is writing a hundreds of pages of secret text in broad daylight), we could assume that it was written in a more secluded place, outside the scope of prying eyes. 

One way to do so could be to take the vellum from a scriptorium using theft, and then write the MS in a "safe place". After all, iron gall ink was not difficult to make "at home", so all that was needed for writing the VMS DYI-style was a lot of vellum.

So I wonder, how easy would it be to steal 100 sheets of vellum from a scriptorium, and whether such a theft would go unnoticed (are 100 sheets "a lot" or "a little" in the scope of a professional workshop)? Would such a theft be recorded in the inventory of a scriptorium?

I began researching the use of parchment over the centuries after the discovery of one of the most important pieces in my collection: the parchment print of Raphael's "Madonna of the Fish" (including mine; another example exists in the English collection of R.H. Keynes, with different coverings
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pages 18-19. Still on the same publication, I recommend reading from page 44 onwards the text by Theresa Fairbanks concerning the history of the creation of the parchment), engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi and/or his student in Rome, Marco Dente da Ravenna "il Ravennate."
From my research, parchment was readily available in Europe until the advent of paper and Swiss paper mills in the 16th-17th centuries, especially in Italy, France, Spain, England, and the Holy Roman Empire of Habsburg (Eastern Europe). Although expensive, there were many artisan workshops that prepared it and sold it to convents, religious copyists (in this case, almost always made in monasteries), artisan copyists, scholars, universities, lawyers, and private individuals who used it for their own purposes. Parchment had varying costs depending on the type of leather, the imperfections it contained (being an organic material), the shade, the thickness, and the quality and importance of the craftsman who crafted it. With the advent of paper, the use of "virgin" parchment was abandoned, becoming an even more valuable and rare material. Thus, the practice of reusing less valuable parchments, which were treated with various processes and reused for overwriting, became widespread.
There was also a black market for parchment.
However, availability at all levels was simply a question of price, not of lack of support.
This is just a short and simple summary because the discussion is much broader.

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The VM parchment / vellum (what is the correct term now?) is generally of rather poor quality. If it was stolen, it was not a huge loss. I could also imagine this was given to someone for practice. Overall, the poor quality fits the poor artistic skills and overall 'provincial' feel of the VM.

Either the creator could not / did not want to spend more on higher quality material, or this was all he could acquire (by whatever means). But yes, if someone 'took' it, the disappearance of low quality sheets would raise significantly less eyebrows than 100+ premium sheets being gone. However, we do not know over which timespan and from how many sources the author acquired the sheets.

It would be interesting to investigate in which kind of environment parchment / vellum of VM quality would be most likely encountered. On one hand, the VM artist must have had access to a high level collection of imagery from different sources, something one would not expect in a poor or simple place. More from a premium workshop, university or even royal library or a wealthy collector. Remember, lavishly illuminated manuscripts were luxury products, not work books. On the other hand, the quality of the VM itself is unexpectedly low. I am still having trouble to reconcile these two facts. Poor artist in a posh place?

You make a lot of great points @Bernd.

(1 hour ago)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am still having trouble to reconcile these two facts. Poor artist in a posh place?

Maybe a scribal apprentice in a large scriptorium with a rich library?

But then again, the writing was made by at least 2 different sets of hands. So several people must have been involved, or known about such a theft. Perhaps brothers/siblings/family members?

Wladimir D has put forth the hypothesis the the sheets were originally much larger and cut only after drawing. I can't say how realistic this scenario is but it would drastically change the size and number of the 'acquired' sheets.
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