![]() The margins around this text and commentary remained empty until 1412, when an additional commentary by Peter Tarentasia was added to the page in a smaller script. This part was produced in Paris during the second half of the 13th century and illuminated in the Du Prat workshop ( source). Around it, in equally dark ink, Peter Lombard’s commentary to St Paul’s letter is encountered. The example in Figure 3 shows a central text column, written in a large letter and deep-dark black ink, which contains the biblical text (the page shows St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians). When several commentaries were present, the design of the page can be quite daunting – and must have been a nightmare to produce (see for example Figure 1). The main text of the book could be flanked by commentaries, which in turn formed additional columns. The quill would bring this blueprint to life: it placed words onto the ruling, thus producing text and meaning. ![]() Ruling pattern, showing two pages with horizontal and vertical ruling, and marginal prickings. The still empty lines, yet to be complemented with words, determined what the book would look like and how it could be used later. In a way this grid of horizontal and vertical lines functioned as the blueprint of the manuscript: it defined the ultimate page even before a single letter was written down on it. An extra line was added in the upper margin to guide the running title, if one was planned, while in preparation for marginal commentaries extra ruling was added to the marginal space (both not present in Figure 2). Even the ultimate presence of reading aids was construed during this early production stage. The resulting grid formed the outline of the future text: it defined – and confined – the number and location of the columns, the number of lines they would hold, as well as the dimensions and positioning of the four margins. ![]() After that date a piece of lead or a pen and ink produced the ruling ( this miniature shows a scribe using a ruler to produce the ruling at the top of this post is another).Ĭonnecting the dots in this fashion, the scribe placed a web of lines on the page (Figure 2). 1150, a sharp object was used to produce gutters – indentations in the parchment – which created pathways for the lines of text flowing out of the pen. The second was a tool with which he could add ruling to the page. The first was a pointy device that allowed him to punch holes in the parchment or paper leaves, which appear like dots along the long edges of the book. After the scribe had figured out how to tackle a particular book – he knew how it would be used, having had input from the patron or the monastery’s librarian – he would start designing the page by grabbing two tools that were fundamental for what the page would ultimately look like. If the page is a building, its foundation was laid in an early stage of a manuscript’s production. What are some of the variables in play? And how did the choice for a certain design affect, positively and negatively, the manner in which the medieval book could be used effectively? Figure 1. Indeed, it can be argued that a page’s design was (and is) key to a book’s success. How and where words were placed on the page – their size and script, and their location – were important considerations in this process of turning the book into a tool that was up to the task. Readers, in turn, preferred their books – and the pages in them – to be formatted in certain ways because they planned to use them for performing particular tasks: to educate or be educated (teachers and students), to entertain or to be entertained (minstrels and courtiers), or to gather a body of information and consult it (scholars, preachers, physicians, lawyers). Like other material features of the manuscript, page design is usually reflective of how the book would be used, but in their choices scribes also responded to the preferences – demands, even – of the individuals who would ultimately use the manuscript. Everything is there for a reason and serves a specific purpose and so, too, is the manner in which the text was spread out over the page. ![]() Nothing encountered on the medieval page is a coincidence. Looking at the medieval page, it is not difficult to regard it as an engineered construction: a convoluted space defined by columns and corridors, with rooms inhabited by thoughts and ideas (Figure 1). It may seem a stretch to compare page design with architecture, but the comparison really works, I think. ![]()
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