Paper Stocks in Western Medieval Manuscripts : Paper stocks

Paper Stocks in Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Year Books, 37 Henry VI (1458-9), possibly written by or for ‘Thomas Babyngton’ (ff. 1r and 50r) of Dethick, Derbyshire, recorder of Nottingham (d. 1519), admitted to Inner Temple in the 1470s or 1480s (CELM, p. 538).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The manuscript is written on four paper stocks. A folio measures about 282 mm in height x 205 mm in width, and the sheets are folded in folio. This suggests that the original sheets had dimensions ranging between 300-315 mm in height and 420-460 mm in width, a format of paper known as Chancery, which was the most common size of paper in medieval England. The range of measurements depends on the precise dimensions of the original sheets before folding and the trimming of the folio before binding.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The paper stocks are interspersed across the quires as indicated below, and include the following watermarks: a single-handled pot, two varieties of a Gothic letter ‘P’ with twin marks, and a bull head. For now, these paper stocks remain unmatched on available repositories, but they are of types in circulation in Europe between the 1480s and the end of the fifteenth century.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>These images have been produced through MSI in order to capture physical details of the item.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Orietta Da Rold and Logan Rivers</p>