The Language of Parchment: Tracing the evidence of changes in the methods of manufacturing parchment for manuscripts with the help of visual analyses.

Parchment has been used as a material for writing of manuscripts for centuries. Results of my research show that the value of the studies of various types of parchment, methods of its preparation and identification of the animal species involved have for several decades been underestimated and the physical description of many manuscripts contains partly misleading information. With the use of various forms of visual analyses combined with practical parchment-making experiments and the support of biomolecular analyses it has been possible to find correct answers and shed new light on the methods of production of parchment in different historical periods and geographical locations. For my research I studied parchment of manuscripts written in the time-span ranging from the Late Antique to the Romanesque period, including some of the most significant Insular and Carolingian codices. Parchment has its own language. To understand its message it is important to carry out systematic research on the characteristics of different types of parchment and the different signs left on its surface by the process of manufacture or later damage. Methods and tools employed for the visual examination were kept quite simple, so that any researcher in manuscript studies would be able to perform them. Different types of lighting helped to recognize remarkable details, giving us information about the types of animals, their sizes and the anatomy of the skins that were used in the manuscripts. Special graphical and photographical methods were used to record different traces originating from the production of the parchment or the reassembly of the original sizes of skins. Visual analyses of parchment might be used as a new tool complementary to the traditional group of disciplines used for the study of manuscripts.