Bad skin

These four images share a feature frequently encountered in medieval books: skin problems. That is to say, in all four there is something bad about the animal skin - or parchment - from which the page is made. Three of them feature a gaping hole, caused by the pressure of the parchment maker’s knife, while the fourth turned purple from the mould that attacked the page due to damp storage conditions. The skin may be bad, but it makes for lovely images.

More about what you can learn from such damage in my blog post The Skinny on Bad Parchment.

Pics: Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc.-Nat.1 (top); Engelbert, Stiftsbibliothek, 161 (middle, left); Leiden, University Library, BPL 2896 (middle, right) and Uppsala, University Library, shelfmark unknown (bottom).