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ABSTRACT
The paper examines the bookmarks recorded in the manuscript collection of the St Catherine’s Monastery Library in Sinai. It proposes a consistent classification and terminology and examines in detail the three main types of bookmarks, the board strap markers, the endband string markers and the leaf tab markers using the physical evidence collected through the St Catherine’s Library Conservation Project as well as iconographical evidence from Byzantine works of art. The bookmark structure, function and materials are explained in detail, and line drawings of their shape and construction are also provided. Special attention is given to leather straps fixed on the boards of codices which have been interpreted as ‘lifting tabs’ in the past and which are now reinterpreted as bookmarks.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht verschiedene Arten von Lesezeichen, die in der Handschriftensammlung der Bibliothek des Katharinenklosters auf dem Sinai erfasst wurden. Es wird eine einheitliche Klassifizierung und Terminologie vorgeschlagen und im Detail die drei Haupttypen von Lesezeichen untersucht: deckelfixierte Riemen, kapitalfixierte Schnüre und Registerstreifen, wobei materielle Belege aus dem ‘St Catherine’s Library Conservation Project’, und ikonografische Nachweise aus der byzantinischen Malerei herangezogen wurden. Aufbau, Funktion und Materialien der Lesezeichen werden ausführlich erläutert, und durch Schemazeichnungen zu ihrer Form und Ausführung ergänzt. Besonderes Augenmerk wird auf Lederriemen gelegt, die an den Deckeln der Codices befestigt sind: in der Vergangenheit häufig als ‘Aufschlaghilfen’ gedeutet, werden sie inzwischen als Lesezeichen neu interpretiert.
Acknowledgements
This paper was originally written under the encouragement of Nicholas Pickwoad and Michael Gullick. The latter has read and edited the text with much care before it was submitted for the present volume. To them, the editors and the two reviewers I am most grateful. Special thanks to Athanasios Velios for providing the necessary spreadsheets with relevant information from the database of The St Catherine Foundation condition reports on the bindings at St Catherine’s monastery and to Maria Argyrou who photographed for me several examples of bookmarks while on one of her visits to the monastery. My thanks also to Maria Kalligerou, Andrew Honey, Nicholas Sarris, Nicholaos Toutos, Nikolaos Bonovas and Amalia Gimourtzina. Above all, I am indebted to the fathers of the St Catherine’s monastery and especially to the librarian of the monastery, Father Justin, for his time and patience, and for clarifying to me the use of liturgical books in the services.
Manuscripts cited only by name and number (for example, Greek 000) are all housed in the library of St Catherine’s monastery, Sinai, Egypt. Manuscripts preserved in other collections are identified by the place or the collection where they belong and the catalogue number.
Codices from the St Catherine’s Monastery Library mentioned in the text.
Arabic 62, Psalter, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 69, Gospels, parchment, 1065.
Arabic 74, Gospels, parchment, 9th c.
Arabic 81, New Testament, paper, AD 1323.
Arabic 88, New Testament, paper, AD 1290.
Arabic 94, Gospels, paper, AD 1262.
Arabic 107, Gospels, paper, AD 1393.
Arabic 112, Gospels, paper, AD 1259.
Arabic 131, Lectionary, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 139, Lectionary, paper, AD 1185.
Arabic 175, Lectionary, paper, AD 1225.
Arabic 267, Typikon, paper, AD 1325.
Arabic 292, John Chrysostom commentary, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 302, Commentary on the Epistles, paper, AD 1255.
Arabic 361, Sayings of St Dorotheos, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 396, Menologion, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 501, Liturgical texts, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 557, Paradise of the fathers, paper, 13th c.
Arabic 562, Prayers, paper, AD 1291.
Georgian 37, Gospels and Epistles, parchment, 10th c.
Georgian 67, Lectionary, paper, 13th c.
Georgian 86, Psalms, paper, 14th-15th c.
Greek 2, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, parchment, 12th c.
Greek 22, Psalms, parchment, 10th c.
Greek 36, Pslater and Odes, parchment, 8th–9th c.
Greek 206, Gospels, parchment, AD 1303 rebound in the 16th century.
Greek 216, Gospels, parchment, 13th c.
Greek 217, Gospels, parchment, 11th c.
Greek 285, Acts and Epistles, parchment, 12th–13th c.
Greek 566, Menologion, parchment, 11th c.
Greek 598, Menologion, parchment, 11th c.
Greek 629, Meneon, paper, 15th c.
Greek 1048, Liturgical, paper, 16th–17th c.
Greek 1097, Typikon, paper, 1214.
Greek 1115, Nomocanon, parchment, 11th–12th c.
Greek 1185, History of Nicephoros, parchment, 11th c.
Greek 1234, Music, paper, second half of the 15th c.
Greek 1243, Triodios and Pentikostarion, parchment, 11th c.
Greek 1273, Triodion & Pentikostarion, paper, 14th c.
Greek 1280, Music, paper, 15th c.
Greek 1418, Paraklitiki, paper, 18th c.
Greek 1991, Gospels, paper, 14th–15th c.
Greek 2044, Horologion, paper, 16th c.
Greek 2065, Psalter, paper, AD. 1629.
Greek 2187, Letters, paper, 18th c, in original binding.
Greek 2201, Services, paper, 14th c.
Syriac 17, Gospels, parchment, 9th c.
Syriac 20, Lectionary, parchment, AD 1015.
Syriac 75, Lectionary, paper, AD 1295.
Syriac 85, Menologion, paper, AD 1258.
Syriac 130, Horologion, paper, 13th c.
Syriac 155, Psalms, paper, AD 1256.
Syriac 178, Eucholigion, paper, 13th c.,
Syriac 240, Psalter, paper, AD 1331
Syriac 254, Services, paper, 13th c.
Syriac 273, Ermologion, paper, 13th c.
Notes
1 Although markers or bookmarks are still used today, they consist almost exclusively of loose pieces of stiff paper, textile, metal and other material, which are often used as means of publicity and promotion of products, events, places and so on. For such contemporary markers see, for example, the websites: Mirage Bookmark (Citation2019) and International Friends of Bookmarks (Citation2019).
2 Here and below, an original binding is considered to be the first binding of a manuscript, more or less contemporary with the text-block.
3 Although it is possible that some kind of marking device would have been used with papyrus scrolls, there is no archaeological, literary or visual evidence known to me that could be described as a marker. The same results occur from a quick inspection of the liturgical scrolls preserved in Sinai containing the three liturgies and which are sometimes several meters long. A simple temporary marking device would be just to roll the two ends of the scroll and have them meet at the place in the scroll that the reader would like to interrupt his or her reading.
4 Among the Ethiopic codices there is one with a BSM (Ethiopic 4, 15th c.), three with LTMs (14th c, 15th c, and 16th c.), and one (the same as the one with the BSM) with an ESM. In the Slavonic collection, there is one with a BSM (Slavonic 2, 15th–18th c.), twelve with LTMs (15th–18th c.), and twelve with ESMs (15th–18th c.).
5 Besides the codex from the Sinai library such stains have also been found in codices from other libraries and collections: Museum of Byzantine Culture, Ms. MBP 21 (9th c.), Iviron Monastery Greek 253 (13th c.), Iviron Monastery Greek 271 (12th c.), Iviron Monastery Greek 837 (16th c.), Iviron Monastery Georgian 15 (12th–13th c.), Iviron Monastery Georgian 17 (late 10th–early 11th c.), Iviron Monastery Georgian 13 (1008 AD), Morgan 569 (9th–10th c.), Vlatadon Monastery codex 8 (12th c.), and Vlatadon Monastery codex 9 (10th c). Drawings of the stains from the Vlatadon codices are given in g,h.
6 The use of parchment as lining for the marker of Chester Beatty codex B was to stiffen the ‘tag’ part of the marker and not the leather strap part which anchored the tag to the board.
7 A dark and neat stain on the parchment of an end-leaf of Mount Athos, Iviron, Greek 253 testifies that the now missing BTM had indented edges cut in a very similar way to the one in Greek 22.
8 Here and below I use the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ to refer to boards, to be identified with the boards to the left and right when looking at the fore-edge of a book. In this, I am following the practice of the St Catherine’s assessment form which, because it had to deal with books whose text begins at the ‘front’ in western languages (such as Greek and Georgian) or the ‘back’ in near-Eastern languages (such as Arabic and Syriac).
9 As the method of attachment of BSMs to boards was only incorporated in the assessment form at an advanced stage, some data is missing at present, but most of those concerning BSMs can be retrievable from photographs made as part of the assessment process.
10 In this volume there are three different textiles used for the LTMs: a bright red silk, a pink silk and a silk textile incorporating gilded metal threads some of which are pasted above the bright red ones. A detailed study of the text (not possible to the writer) would be able to cast light in the question if the different textiles have some meaning as marking distinctive parts of the text-blocks though their rather regular distribution (pink in the first leaves, bright red in the next ones and silk with gilded threads above the bright red in the last ones) would seem to support such an idea. Note that these last ones are clearly distinct in the fore-edge due to their thickness.
11 For catalogue information, an updated bibliography and digital images of the miniature see Bodleian Library (Citation2019).
12 There are a lot of similar evidence among which just indicatively see the open book held by St John the Baptist in Jan Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (AD 1420–32 circa, Cathedral of St Bavo, Ghent) (Universum Digitalis, Citation2017), the open book on the table in the Merode Altarpiece, attributed to Robert Campin’s workshop (c. 1427–32, Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Citation2019), the open book in the portrait of Desiderius Erasmus by Albrecht Durer (print, 1526 A.D.) (Art Institute of Chicago, Citation2019).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Georgios Boudalis
Georgios Boudalis studied Fine Arts and Art Conservation in Florence, Athens, London and Thessaloniki where he is the head of book and paper conservation at the Museum of Byzantine Culture since 2000. He completed his PhD in 2005 on the evolution of Byzantine and post-Byzantine bookbinding and has since published on issues of bookbinding history and manuscript conservation. His main interests are the evolution of bookbinding structures and techniques in the Eastern Mediterranean and how these can be studied using a combination of physical, written and iconographical evidence. Since 2006 he has been teaching courses on the history of eastern Mediterranean bookbindings both on a historical and practical basis. He has been a visiting scholar and an adjunct professor at Bard Graduate Center in New York where in 2018 he curated the exhibition ‘The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity’ and published a book with the same title.