{"id":18217,"date":"2025-04-09T00:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T00:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/the-skin-on-mysterious-medieval-books-concealed-a-shaggy-surprise\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T00:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T00:26:10","slug":"the-skin-on-mysterious-medieval-books-concealed-a-shaggy-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/the-skin-on-mysterious-medieval-books-concealed-a-shaggy-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"The Skin on Mysterious Medieval Books Concealed a Shaggy Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Medieval scribes filled volumes called bestiaries with illustrations and descriptions of fantastic creatures. The manuscripts containing representations of these animals also depended on a menagerie of beasts: The covers of these and other volumes were fashioned from the skins of calves, goats, sheep, deer, pigs and, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/19\/arts\/books-human-skin-harvard.html\" title=\"\">in some macabre instances, humans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Most of these hides were shorn before they were turned into book bindings. But one set of medieval manuscripts from northeastern France has a peculiar finish: Its weathered covers are covered in clumps of hair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese books are too rough and far too hairy to be calfskin,\u201d said Matthew Collins, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Copenhagen and Cambridge University and an author of the new study. But identifying the source of the shaggy leather has proved difficult.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While these furry tomes would seem at home in Hogwarts library, they were originally made in the scriptorium of Clairvaux Abbey, a hub for an order of Catholic monks, the Cistercians. The abbey, founded in 1115 in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, was home to one of the largest monastic libraries in medieval Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some 1,450 volumes of the abbey\u2019s extensive corpus survive. Roughly half of these manuscripts remain in their fragile, original bindings. Many were bound during the 12th and 13th centuries in the Romanesque style, which placed the parchment between wooden boards fastened with thread and cord.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At Clairvaux Abbey, these Romanesque books were often housed inside a secondary cover that was bristled with fur. Traditionally, this unshorn leather was thought to be made from boars or deer. However, the hair follicles on some of the manuscripts do not match the fur of either mammal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Collins and his colleagues examined the hairy covers of 16 manuscripts that were once housed at Clairvaux Abbey. The researchers rubbed the flesh side of the leather with erasers to carefully remove crumb-size samples. They then utilized a range of techniques to analyze protein sequences and bits of ancient DNA from the leather.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Their findings, published on Wednesday in the journal <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/doi\/10.1098\/rsos.241090\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Society Open Science<\/a>, reveal that the books are bound not in the hides of local land mammals, but in sealskin. Several of the books were bound in harbor seal skin, and at least one came from a harp seal. Comparing them with contemporary DNA suggests an origin of the seals in Scandinavia and Scotland, or potentially as far away as Iceland or Greenland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">These disparate areas were once connected by a complex medieval trading network. In the Middle Ages, Norse traders harvested walrus ivory and pelts from Greenland and sent them to mainland Europe. While Clairvaux and its monks were far inland from these coastal outposts, the abbey was near a well-trafficked trading route.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to Mary Wellesley, a fellow at the Institute of Historical Research in London who specializes in medieval manuscripts and was not involved in the new paper, its findings shed light on medieval society.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe small details of manuscripts can tell you so much about the world that created them,\u201d Dr. Wellesley said. \u201cIt\u2019s a popular assumption that people didn\u2019t move around, but these monastic institutions are part of this amazing network of goods, books and ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Seals were a valuable commodity because of their meat, blubber and waterproof skin, which could be fashioned into boots and gloves. Some records even claim that sealskin was used to pay church taxes. Coastal communities in Scandinavia and Ireland used sealskin to bind books, but the practice was much rarer in mainland Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cistercian monks, though, appear to have had a fondness for sealskin books. Examples of these fur-covered manuscripts have been found in other abbeys that descended from Clairvaux. These monks even used the material to bind their most important documents, such as historical information about St. Bernard, a major Cistercian figure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to Dr. Collins, the color of seal fur may explain the monks\u2019 penchant for using the animals\u2019 skins. While the manuscripts\u2019 covers are now yellowish-gray or splotchy brown, they were once encased in the white fur of seal pups. This shade matched the monks\u2019 undyed vestments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIn medieval Europe, you don\u2019t really have anything that\u2019s pure white,\u201d Dr. Collins said. \u201cIt must have been quite magical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The seals themselves likely seemed akin to magical entities to the monks: In medieval bestiaries, seals were labeled \u201csea calves\u201d and resemble dogs with fish tails, rather than pudgy pinnipeds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/08\/science\/medieval-books-hair-binding.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Medieval scribes filled volumes called bestiaries with illustrations and descriptions of fantastic creatures. The manuscripts containing representations of these animals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[5724,1176,152,5394,5087,5088,2275,5723,188],"class_list":["post-18217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-bookbinding","tag-books-and-literature","tag-france","tag-fur","tag-manuscripts","tag-middle-ages-historical-period","tag-royal-society-open-science-journal","tag-seals-animals-and-sealing","tag-your-feed-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Skin on Mysterious Medieval Books Concealed a Shaggy Surprise - World News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/the-skin-on-mysterious-medieval-books-concealed-a-shaggy-surprise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Skin on Mysterious Medieval Books Concealed a Shaggy Surprise - World News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Medieval scribes filled volumes called bestiaries with illustrations and descriptions of fantastic creatures. 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