Paper Stocks in Western Medieval Manuscripts : Paper stocks

Paper Stocks in Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Accounts of the Cluniac Priory of Thetford, Norfolk, dated from Christmas 1480 to the prior to the dissolution in 1540 (SCAMM, p. 289).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The accounts are written on paper. Each folio measures approximately 302 mm in height x 215 mm in width, and the sheets are folded in folio. This suggests that the original sheets had dimensions ranging between 300-315 in height mm x 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 comprises four paper stocks, three of which have a twin. The stocks are marked by the following watermarks: a fruit in the shape of a pomegranate, two types of hand surmounted by a star and a hand surmounted by a six-petal flower. The mark of the fruit is not on <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://memoryofpaper.eu/BernsteinPortal/appl_start.disp#'>Bernstein</a> and does not correspond to any established IPH paper classification.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>These dated accounts show that these paper stocks were in use in the East of England in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.</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>