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ABSTRACT
An original twelfth-century binding in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles was studied by Christopher Clarkson in 1994. Unusual features caught his attention, particularly its undecorated tanned leather over-cover (‘chemise’) attached to bare boards by sewn-on ‘turn-in’ flaps and envelope pockets of white alum-tawed skin. With Clarkson’s condition report of the binding as its starting point, this new study situates the binding of the Getty’s Life of St Anselm into a wider context of northern French and Flemish Benedictine and Cistercian bindings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This paper highlights the binding practices of reform monastic orders and their ‘spirit of thrift’.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Ein Originaleinband aus dem zwölften Jahrhundert aus der Sammlung des J. Paul Getty Museums in Los Angeles, wurde 1994 von Christopher Clarkson untersucht. Ungewöhnliche Merkmale erregten damals seine Aufmerksamkeit, insbesondere die undekorierte Hülle (Chemise) aus gegerbtem Leder, die durch angenähte Einschläge und Umschlagtaschen aus weißem alaunbehandeltem Leder, mit den nackten Holzdeckeln verbunden ist. Mit Clarksons Zustandsbericht über den Einband als Ausgangspunkt, setzt diese neue Studie den Einband von Gettys Life of St. Anselm in einen breiteren Kontext nordfranzösischer und flämischer Benediktiner- und Zisterzienser-Einbände des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. Dieser Artikel verdeutlicht die Bindepraxis der Reformklöster und ihren ‘Geist der Sparsamkeit’.
Acknowledgments
This essay was inspired by Christopher Clarkson’s visit to the Getty and the report he prepared on the Getty Eadmer’s binding in 1994, and has only improved over its long period of gestation. I am particularly grateful to Michael Gullick for his initial invitation to prepare this paper, for reading early drafts, and for his numerous helpful suggestions. Inestimable thanks to the Journal of Paper Conservation, particularly Roland Damm and the anonymous peer reviewer who have helped shape the final form of the paper, and to Alberto Campagnolo and Rhea DeStefano for taking on the project of this Special Issue and shepherding it to completion. I am indebted to Richard Rouse, Albert Derolez and Sandy Heslop for generously offering their paleographic thoughts and expertise on the Getty Eadmer manuscript at an early stage of preparation. Sincere thanks to Mary Robertson (Huntington Library), David Morrisson (Worcester Cathedral Library), James Anthony (Hereford Cathedral Library), Kathleen Doyle (The British Library), Bryan Maggs and Robert Harding (Wormsley Library), Danielle de Smet (Bibliothèque de la Ville, Tournai), and Rémy Cordonnier (Bibliothèque d’Agglomération de Pays Saint-Omer) for allowing me to consult the important original bindings discussed here in their care. I am particularly grateful to Mme. De Smet and Dr Cordonnier for permission to take photographs and publish them here. Lieve Watteeuw alerted me to the Tournai bindings and facilitated my visit to Tournai in 2006 — I thank her especially for her warm hospitality during my repeated stays in Ghent over the years. I thank Shaun Thompson for generously sharing study photographs of some Ter Duinen and Ter Doest bindings in Bruges so that I might include them in my discussion. In 2004, Arlen Heginbotham made the X-rays of the boards of the Getty Eadmer (taken at 30 kV with Kodak Industrex MX125 film) for which I am most grateful, and Didier Pousset provided the dendrochronolgical analysis. Marc Harnly, Head of Paper Conservation at the Getty Museum, deserves my sincerest thanks for his support of this research. Despite the prodigious help I received from these many colleagues and friends, all errors remain my own.
Notes
1 I am grateful to Richard Rouse for this reference.
2 The text of the Getty Eadmer was written in a single column, with twenty-two lines per page and first line of text written above topmost ruling line.
3 Paleographical features that led Derolez to distinguish the scribe’s hand from Lambert’s and thus to a date later than the Liber Floridus included: the compactness and angularity of the script (visible in the first folios) and the use of tironian et alternating with the ampersand (See Acknowledgments).
4 While this notation provides a terminus post quem of 1119 (Southern, Citation1972), Richard Rouse highlighted a few contradictory palaeographical features that might suggest the work of a conservative, non-school trained scribe or perhaps an older scribe (R. Rouse 2006, personal communication, April). Rouse noted that the sign of school training would include more compression, use of abbreviations, and faster forms; yet features like the separate pp, the angularity of the letter’s feet (as on the r), letterforms that exhibit a lack of compression, and, in a few instances, an early form of a ct ligature, long s (and no round s), together with the angularity and lozenge-shaped letters (bent back q, c, e and t) and the use of relatively few abbreviations in the Getty Eadmer suggest otherwise. Ultimately, Prof. Rouse demurred to the expertise of Albert Derolez (See Acknowledgements).
5 Measurements from the head to tail of the folios of the kettle stitches and two sewing supports are as follows (in millimetres): 25 (K) — 53 (SS) — 123 (SS) — 148 (K).
6 The collection of illuminated manuscripts owned by Peter and Irene Ludwig (Aachen, Germany) was purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu in 1983 (located since 1997 in Los Angeles) (see von Euw & Plotzek, Citation1982: 4 volumes).
7 I thank Lieve Watteeuw for sharing with me her condition reports (dated 3 May 2006) of the three volume Glossed Bible at Tournai, in which she affirms the manuscripts have never been resewn and that the bindings are contemporary with the text (See Acknowledgments).
8 Further study is required to ascertain whether or not the manuscripts were re-sewn onto the extant set of 8 split-tawed sewing supports at the spine, a number that suggests a post thirteenth-century date.
9 A recent opportunity to study a small sampling of Clairmarais bindings now in the Bibliothèque Agglomération Saint-Omer provide additional comparanda for this study. I am grateful to Dr. Rémy Cordonnier for the opportunity to study closely the following manuscripts in February 2019: MS 18, MS 37, MS 81, MS 82, MS 111, MS 137, MS 216, MS 345 and MS 348 (see Acknowledgements). It should be noted that these are but a small selection of the total number of Clairmarais bindings from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that remain in Saint-Omer (see Staats et al., Citation2016).
10 I thank Shaun Thompson, conservator at Cambridge University Library for for so generously sharing his photographs with me for study purposes, as they have allowed me to make these observations.
11 For MS Alc. 425, it remains a bit unclear if this is indeed the case, as photographs published given in Nascimento and Dias Diogo (Citation1984, 72–3) appear to show sewn on turn-in flaps that attach an alum-tawed over-cover to bare boards, with exposed board edges visible—and no under-cover apparent—in the two partial views of the inside front and back inside covers given. As the focus of Nascimento’s work is on the lacing patterns, the presence of under-covers and over-covers with turn-in flaps do not appear to be featured in Nascimento’s discussion.
12 See Digital Bodleian (Bodleian Libraries, Citation2019: http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk) for high resolution images of the manuscript, including its seal skin binding.
13 As I have not had the opportunity to study the Edinburgh or Pembroke College Cambridge manuscripts from Buildwas first-hand, I have relied upon Sheppard’s excellent photographs and description as the basis for these observations.
14 I thank Michael Gullick for calling my attention to this phrase in the inventory and for sharing his article with me in 2006 when this paper was under initial preparation.
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Nancy K. Turner
Nancy Turner is conservator of manuscripts at The J. Paul Getty Museum, where she has been responsible for the preservation and conservation of the collection of illuminated manuscripts since 1984. Her areas of specialty include the conservation treatment and technical study of parchment and painting materials of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts. B.A. Stanford University (1983: art history and anthropology); M.A. University of California, Los Angeles (1996: history). She studied bookbinding with Olivia Primanis and David Brock, and held the advanced conservation internship at Trinity College Library, Dublin with Anthony Cains during the academic year 1989–90. She first met Christopher Clarkson while taking his courses, Medieval Book Structures I (1985) and II (1987, co-taught by Michael Gullick) at Columbia University’s Rare Book School.