12022-10-20T22:53:32-07:00Elizabeth Palomino97f5cc41f822c98012020ee3f1612be0c7950d52406361plain2022-10-20T22:53:32-07:00Elizabeth Palomino97f5cc41f822c98012020ee3f1612be0c7950d52The edges of the covering material of a binding, which are folded over the head, tail, and fore edge of the boards and secured to their inner sides.
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12022-10-20T15:52:18-07:00MS C189 Inner Cover15plain2022-12-10T13:05:16-08:00Inner Cover Text: “De misericordia” (On Mercy) Author: John Chrysostom Script: late Caroline minuscule Description:
Two columns of 38 lines, ruled in drypoint
Condition:
The upper margin of the bifolium (now the fore-edgeturn-in of the front cover) is trimmed
No loss of text
John Chrysostom (c.347 - 407 C.E.) Born: Antioch, Turkey Died: Comana, Turkey “De misericordia” The text on the inner cover of MS C189 is from a sermon credited to John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth and early fifth century. He was called Chrysostom or “golden mouth'' due to his impactful messages. The sermon on MS C189 is titled, “De misericordia” (On Mercy). It begins, “Tria sunt quae in misericordiae opera” (“There are three things in the works of mercy… ”) This opening passage is not visible on the fragment.
12022-10-20T15:51:14-07:00MS C189 Outer Cover12plain2022-12-10T13:01:27-08:00Outer Cover Text: Sententiae (Sentences) Author: Isidore of Seville Script: late Caroline minuscule Description:
Two columns of 38 lines, ruled in drypoint.
The repurposed parchment bifolium used for the cover likely comes from a homiliary, dated to the second half of the eleventh century.
Condition: Fragile
The cover is warped due to extensive water damage.
The cover and the flyleaves are cockled.
The cover and flyleaves have minorbookwormdamage.
Trimmed upper margin
There seems to be no loss of text due to trimming
Most of the text is still readable on the cover and the turn-ins.
Isidore of Seville ( c. 560 - 636) Born: Cartagena, or Seville, Spain Died: Seville, Spain Sententiae Instead of scraping away the text to reveal a blank surface, the scriptorium preserved the text as a protective wrapping. The parchment leaf that forms the outer cover (the recto side of the first of the two folios) likely comes from a homiliary, dated around the second half of the eleventh century. A homiliary, is a set of short texts and sermons on a moral theme. The cover contains text from Isidore of Seville's Sententiae, Book 10.11 "De angelis" (On the Angels.) Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae was popular and there are many copies from the Middle Ages. MS C54 is another manuscript at the Spencer Research Library that contains the Sententiae.
During the middle ages, manuscript pages were made from parchment, or in some cases vellum. Parchment is a writing surface made from stretched sheep or goatskin, whereas vellum is made from calfskin. Vellum is a smooth, even writing surface that surpasses parchment in both quality and cost. Parchment is sturdy but it is also difficult and costly to produce. Older manuscripts were sometimes recycled for the production of new books. A scraping device such as pumice was commonly used to erase text and reuse pages, this creates what is known as a palimpsest. Occasionally, bookbinders used fragments of manuscripts as book spines. In some cases, old manuscript leaves were cut and folded to fit the cover of a new book.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
The cover, the front flyleaves and the back flyleaves of MS C189 are made up of parchment leaves from three different manuscripts. This manuscript is placed inside fragments of two manuscripts and then wrapped with a third one. Parchment was folded in half to produce a limp binding, this is known as a bifolium. Two folios (singular pages) were folded in half to form flyleaves at the front and back of the manuscript. Flyleaves act as barriers, protecting the main text from pest damage such as worming.
The parchment cover is attached to the book block by exposed leather split laces. The split lacesexit through single slits and each lace returns through two separate slits to create a V shape. The split laces are mostly intact. All edges of the cover are large enough to allow for turn-ins. The upper margin of the bifolium was trimmed to form what is now the fore-edgeturn-in for the front cover. The cover has lapped miters; the fore-edge turn-ins lie on top of the headandtailturn-ins at the corner of the miters.