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bifolium (G Bifolium, Doppelblatt): double leaf; two leaves connected at the spine; i.e. folded once.

catchword (G Reklamant): the beginning or first important words of the following quire added at the bottom of the last page of the previous quire to facilitate binding in the right order.

codex (G Kodex): a set of several quires or gatherings sewn together in ‘book form’ collation: describing how the manuscript/codex is put together: quires, folios, flyleaves, e.g. a2 18-188 194 (+1), i.e. quire a contains 2 folios (=leaves), quires 1 through 18 contain 8 each, quire 9 contains 4 + one extra bifolium. Flyleaves are usually marked with Roman numerals, e.g. i+ii+iii, etc.

colophon (G Kolophon): lit. ‘finishing stroke’. Note at the end of a text, or of a whole manuscript, stating author/scribe, date of composition, place of writing, etc.

drypoint (G Griffel-): ruling or glossing a manuscript without using colour or ink, by either scratching into the surface with a sharp point or simply by applying pressure with a blunt point and thus ‘indenting’ the surface. The latter method is not very durable, since moisture or crinkling may destroy the marks.

ductus (G Duktus): the sequence of movements/strokes necessary to write a letter endpaper (G Vorsatzblatt, Vorsatz): first and last leaf of a book – half of the bifolium is glued to the inside of the respective cover.

explicit (G Explicit): end of a text or even a manuscript (Lat: explicit ‘(here) ends…’), sometimes independent of the text and/or written in a different script and/or size and/or colour.

flesh side (G Fleischseite): the inner side of an animal skin, hence the side of a sheet of vellum which originally touched the flesh; finer than the hair side flyleaf (G fliegendes Blatt): extra leaves in a codex, sewn in to protect the main body of the manuscript (ff. abcd in CCCC Ms 278, Psalter).

foliation (G Blattzählung, Foliierung): numbering according to folios (i.e. leaves, not pages).

folio (G Blatt, Folium): half a bifolium; i.e. one leaf.

gathering (G Lage): a set of bifolia, usually 8 pages, i.e. one bifolium folded twice, occ. up to 16 pages (small size prayer books).

gesso (= gilder) (G Gipsgrund, Kreidegrund): slightly ‘elevated’ surface on a page, made from a mixture of plaster and/or chalk and glue, basis for gold layer.

gloss (G Glosse): interlinear or marginal comments on the main text, sometimes translations of individual words. Often added some time after the creation of the main body of text, but sometimes glossing space is provided in the original layout.

gold leaf (G Blattgold): gold sheets hammered out to extreme thinness, used to illuminate illustrations by brushing them onto surfaces covered in glue.

hair side (= grain side) (G Haarseite): the outer side of an animal skin, hence the side of a sheet of vellum which originally bore the hairs or fur; coarser than the flesh side; sometimes individual hairs are still visible.

hand: personal handwriting of a scribe; based on (and to be distinguished from) a particular script he or she had in mind.

illumination (G Illumination, Illuminierung): gold decoration, gilding.

incipit (G Incipit): beginning of a text or even a manuscript (Lat: incipit ‘(here) begins…’), sometimes independent of the text and/or written in a different script and/or size and/or colour.

initial (G Initiale, Initial): enlarged first letter of a text, usually decorated and/or illuminated. May cover a whole page.

iron gall ink (G Eisengallustinte, Gallapfeltinte): ink made from the tannin contained in oak galls or oak apples.

linen paper (G Leinwandpapier): paper made from linen rags.

lunellum (G Lunellum): half-moon shaped knife for scraping parchment.

manuscript (G Handschrift; Manuskript): hand written text.

miniature (G Miniatur): picture, usually depicting historical scenes, or illustrating the text. Sometimes incorporated into the initial.

oak gall (G Gallapfel): outgrowth on oak-leaves, caused by the parasitic gall wasp laying its eggs there.

palimpsest (G Palimpsest): rest or remnant of earlier writing on a piece of parchment. May be found on recycled vellum that was re-used for binding.

papyrus (G Papyrus): writing surface made from the pith of the papyrus sedge.

parchment (G Pergament): writing surface made from animal skin cured and scraped thin. Cf. vellum.

pastedown (G Spiegel): the outer leaf of an endpaper that is pasted down to the inside of the front or back cover of a book.

penknife (G Federmesser): sharp knife used for trimming quills.

pricking (G Punktur, Punktieren, Lochen): little punctures in the parchment made by a variety of means, set at the intersections of the ruling on the first page. By pricking the correctly folded parchment, these punctures would then be visible on all other sheets as well, and could be used to create an exact copy of the original ruling, simply by connecting the prickings with lines.

quill (G Feder): Calamus (the hard central stick-like bit) of pinion feathers, cut to size and the feathery bits (the vanes) scraped off.

quire (G Lage): cf. gathering. Four bifolia originally, hence ‘quarternion’, or ‘quaer’ for short.

rake (= rastrum) (G Rastral): writing instrument with five or more points, used to draw several parallel lines at once (e.g. in ruling).

recto (G Rekto, Schauseite, Vorderseite): ‘front page’ of a leaf.

rubric (G Rubrik): portion of a text written in red ink. Usually chapter or paragraph beginnings/titles or other important material.

rubricate (G rubrizieren): write in red.

rubricator (G Rubrikator): the one (who may or may not be the scribe of the text) responsible for the red bits of text, usually added after the main body of text had been finished.

ruling (G Linieren): ruling a manuscript page vertically and horizontally; defining the layout. Could be done in pencil, ink or drypoint.

scribe (G Schreiber)

stylus (G (Schreib-)Griffel): writing implement to create drypoint writing; also used to write on tabulae ceratae, i.e. wax tablets.

vellum (G Pergament): writing surface originally made from calf skin cured and scraped thin, but generally synonymous to parchment.

verso (G Verso, Rückseite, Unterseite): ‘back side’ of a leaf.

wood pulp paper (G Holzschliffpapier): paper made from wood pulp, far less durable than medieval and early modern linen paper.

(This glossary is based on a lecture held by Prof. Benjamin Bruch at the Department of Linguistics, Vienna University, WT 2008)

 

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