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Closer to the Model:
An Award Presented as a Book.
Merouda Pendray, modernly called Elyse C. Boucher

Originally published as part of the Crossed Quills series, Folump Press, August 2001
This version, copyright 2004
all rights reserved

I have long noticed that there are few period illuminated documents that look like what most scribes in the SCA produce. That's not a bad thing, of course! Most scribes look to illuminated manuscripts for their models when creating SCA award documents. When Mistress Therica Pembroke of Stonegate Manor kindly asked me to do the scroll for her after she received an Award of the Doe's Grace, I took the opportunity to use this non-deadline assignment to do some exploring. Since I would be using books as my primary model, I decided to do the award as a book.
 

Planning the Book

The book project was scheduled in 2 phases; I'd make a small book for myself to work out some problems in construction, and then, with some experience under my belt,  I'd make the book for my patroness.

I chose to work in the Franco-Flemish tradition, choosing the early-mid 15th c. Dutch styles for my own book and intending to use early 16th c. Franco-Flemish styles for my patroness. These are both styles that show up pretty frequently on both sides of the English Channel, and so are appropriate for a lot of personae. However, after viewing the prototype book, my patroness said "Oh! I like that!" Thus, both books were worked in early-mid 15th c. Franco-Flemish styles.

In making the book for my patroness, I decided to use models from actual leaves and as many period materials as I reasonably could.  This pretty much solved the general visual aspects of the book, but it did leave me with a number of decisions regarding the implementation of the general look and the text contents. Obviously, the primary text would be the text granting the award, but then what?

After some research and conversation with my patroness, I decided upon the following:

This book would be a combination of document and prayer book. The program of illumination would be determined primarily by the practices of 15th c. workshops, but I would make some modifications to accommodate the documentary aspects of the book. In books, the patroness is often featured in any opening miniature; in documents, it is the grant-giver who is usually featured in any illuminations. I chose, then, to design the opening miniature as an idealized Queen Kenna dressed in the colors of the Kingdom and presenting the Doe's Grace. References to my patroness are there, though, in keeping with the spirit of the books of the middle ages: The diaper background features the Fleur-de-lis, symbolizing my patroness' position as the Chancellor of the Royal University of the Midrealm, and the Mullet of the background diaper and the colors of the floor tile represent elements from her personal Arms. The remainder of the illumination program is fairly standard and is based primarily on the several French book of hours leaves in my personal collection and the elements used in the prototype book, which, in turn, were taken from various Dutch illuminations of the 15th c.

The text of the book consists of the award text, as mentioned, and selections of religious text based on period personal prayer books. Of course, this is also the modern era; in an attempt to represent religious diversity, I chose the Lord's Prayer (Protestant version), the Hail Mary (Catholic), a Psalm (Jewish), and the New Testament version of The Golden Rule from the Tyndale New Testament, as a sort of generic tenant able to represent all other religions and still be identifiably period. My Lady Patroness was not particular about the selections to be used, and so this seemed a good way to handle both the period and modern concerns regarding the contents.

The calligraphy model went through several changes--well, this seems as good a time as any to talk about the calligraphy specifically.

Calligraphy--Materials and Processes

My lady Patroness is of an era that would be using gothic hands, and I decided, initially, to go with the English Bastard Secretary featured in David Harris' The Art of Calligraphy. I have a personal preference for both English and Bastarda hands, a preference that was in line with my patronesses desire, and since the model leaves for this book featured a book in the French Batarde hand, this seemed like a reasonable design choice.

The book is created on Fabriano paper; this particular paper is a linen based paper that is made in the same way as it was made in the 13th c. I had used it previously to do a display work and considered it an appropriate, "period" paper. I measured it out and use a pricking tool to mark the four corners that would make up the boundaries of the text/illumination blocks. I used a pencil and a ruler for the calligraphy lines and a metal pen and a nib holder for the calligraphy. I planned on using iron-gall ink to do the calligraphy. I had used such ink on this paper in the past, and it had worked beautifully.

Alas, I discovered the bottle had dried out. Thus began an odyssey to find the perfect ink. I tried two other period type inks--a sepia ink and a walnut ink--and a variety of  modern inks, only to find that the best ink for use on medievally made paper is, in fact, medievally made ink. I did the best I could with Dr. Martin's Bombay Black. The paper required pouncing; without it, the ink feathered.

Even with the pouncing, the paper was still absorbing so much ink that the heavy English Bastarda hand was often made illegible. I switched, then, to my idiosyncratic version of Mark Drogin's Bastarda, a hand frequently criticized for lacking the heavy f's and long-s's of the more typical secretary hands. Actually, this hand is a pretty good interpretation of the English secretary hand of the time of Henry V or so, and seen in the occasional book. Even with pouncing, the paper was unexpectedly difficult to write on--resistant (that is, the pen would not move freely over the paper), still slightly absorbent, and just... cranky. This was completely a surprise--the iron-gall ink had performed flawlessly.

In any event, the problems with finding a good combination of paper and ink significantly reduced my store of this paper--and the store doesn't carry it any more. This forced a redesign, again--fewer folios, and the damaged sheets of paper would be used in the binding process as the spine and the flyleaves. Well, it certainly solved the problem of what paper to use in the binding process; I'd initially planned on using all the "medieval" sheets in the book and a less expensive but similar appearing paper. That similar looking paper proved elusive to locate: no worries about that now.

I calligraphed all the folios at the same time; the problems made for a long day. I wrote out the folios consecutively--i.e., I had cut the paper into bifoliums and numbered each corner with its folio designation in order to make certain that I wrote the text in the appropriate order. The bifolium margins were, in top-side-side-bottom order, 1-1-1-2 units of measurement around the border and 1 unit of measurement down the center, which gives a 1/2 unit center border for each folio. Bifolium margins may be determined by use of the "Golden Section" (see The Calligrapher's Handbook for these instructions), but I found that the reduced size of the text block created by the golden section was too restrictive--based on the amount of paper I eventually ended up with, I'm glad I made this choice.

Illumination--Materials and Process.

Before I'd written out the text, I'd blocked off areas for the illumination. I usually draw on a layout paper and then trace to the artwork, but this time, as I had done with the prototype, I drew straight to the page, then flipped the page over and traced the design through to the other side. My only tools in drawing were pencil, pen, ruler, and circle template.

One section of the usable paper had been calligraphed in the previous hand, and that mistake had to be completely covered. For this section, I used casein paints. This is a type of distemper paint known and used, albeit infrequently, on books, in period. Casein painting is more frequently found on wood, but it has one excellent advantage over the more typical book paints--it is water resistant within hours of drying, and nearly waterproof within 24 hours. With a heavy duty mistake to cover, a waterproof paint seemed to me the best way to create an appropriate illumination element.

In other cases, the paints used were a combination of commercially prepared gouaches and my own hand-made paints, consisting of pigment and gum arabic solution (gum arabic, water, honey).

In my research, I had run across a scholarly work devoted to the contents of the university library in Valencia, which included a small section on the use of Mosaic gold, not as a substitute to shell gold, but as a pigment in its own right, in conjunction with shell gold, in books and on documents. I decided to use this interesting tidbit to create a subtle statement about the importance of each aspect of the book--and, knowing that the pictures in books never efficiently reproduce the effects of golden colors,  allow myself a better look at the contrast between three sorts of gold. The most important aspects of the book, the miniature and the first word of the document, feature gold leaf on gesso. The remainder of the text features shell gold in the initials and line enders. The tertiary aspect of the book, the decoration in the borders, features a gold pigment. I must say, I certainly enjoy the way these three golds contrast and will likely use the scheme many times in the future.

After putting down the gold, I painted in the colors, in all cases, background to foreground, with whitework always being the last stage of work. I shaded by using tones of color, except in those cases where I wanted a slightly more subtle effect--then I used a damp brush along the edges of the light/dark line to create the third color tone.

When comparing this book project to the prototype book, I noted that the paper used with the prototype (a vegetable parchment with a surface very similar to vellum) was certainly easier to work with when writing and painting, particularly considering the double page nature of books. On the other hand, the "medieval" paper was far more amenable to folding and binding.

Binding--Materials and Process

Once again, here was something that had changed considerably from the moment of conception to the moment of execution.

My first plan was an embroidered cover over boards. This plan taught me something about myself--I enjoy the end results of embroidery, but not so much that I'm willing to devote more than ten minutes to it once a month. At the rate I was working, it would take me 15 years to finish embroidering to cover.

Like all scribes, I have a few failed scrolls around, and so I decided next to try pasteboard covered in book cloth--period and thin. Both are most easily made. A solution of 3 parts water to one part flour, cooked to smoothness, makes an excellent, water-soluble, period binding paste. I used this paste to glue several layers of failed scrolls together (using old scrolls was actually inspired by the period practice of reusing old book pages as pasteboard and wraps in period bindings), then used it to glue up a book cloth--a piece of black cotton cloth glued to a thin piece of acid free paper.

However, while setting these items up to dry under pressure (to keep them flat, of course), I glanced over at a pile of leather scraps I'd recently acquired. Therein were two thick pieces (about 1/8 inch) of black leather, and I had a sudden vision of the book cloth serving merely as the back of the binding, with the two leather pieces forming the boards. Covered at the corners with some brass tabs for protection, it would look far more splendid than plain black cotton cloth--and would allow me that most preferred of experiences, the chance to do something new.

I used a bone folder to get a nice, flat fold in the folios, then punched holes for the linen thread. This book used a 4-hole single section binding, sewn with linen thread drawn through beeswax. The attachment bifolium, sandwiched between the outer book cloth and the leather "boards," was reinforced with linen binding tape, and the flyleaves tipped in and glued down with the same paste that made the pasteboard and the book cloth. Flyleaves are not usual in most medieval bindings, but I felt that the added protection was worth the small change.

Before the binding, I hammered on brass tabs to the outer corners of the leather as protection, and after binding, made a small tapestry slip cover with tie tabs as one more layer of protection.

Conclusion

What an adventure! I really loved doing this book and wish I could keep it. I'm glad to have done the work for someone who will appreciate it. My Lady Patroness has kindly suggested that I keep it in my possession a short while longer, that I might take it about and show it to people before it is at last brought home to her household. This is a two edged sword!  Does any artist ever feel like a work is absolutely done? I'll be so sorely tempted to fiddle with this and fiddle with that! Still, I will try to resist, and continue to carry it with me to events through at least 12th Night 2002; if you run into me at an event, do ask to see it! It's best viewed in person.

Statistical Summary:
Bound, single section document. American, 2001. Cover and Binding: Leather boards, brass corners, quarter bound with book cloth. Waxed linen thread binding stitch. Tipped in flyleaves. Tapestry slipcover.  Interior: Raised gilding, shell gold, casein, gouache, period paints, and ink on heavy, cream colored, laid line paper with Fabriano watermark.

Number of folios, not including flyleaves: 6.
Contents:
    Folio 1v: Blank
    Folio 1r: Miniature of Queen presenting Doe's Grace
    Folio 2v-3v: Document: Doe's Grace
    Folio 3r, 4v: The Lord's Prayer.
    Folio 4r: Hail Mary
    Folio 5v: Psalm
    Folio 5r: Golden rule, simple colophon.
    Folio 6v: (Blank, reserved for Kingdom Stamp or recipient's use)
    Folio 6r: Artist Signature, lower corner.

Measurements:
all measures approximate
 
Folio:  110 cm by 143 mm
Miniature:
    Center Section: 47 mm by 71 mm
    With bar border and gold dots: 68 mm by 93 mm
Text & border pages: Total of 70 mm by 95 mm
    Text: 50 mm width per line, up to 14 lines
    X-height: 2.5 mm
    Border: 20 mm x 95 mm

Selected References

Boucher, E. On Illuminated Manuscripts. http://www.geocities.com/merouda/ (old) or http://www.merouda.com/oim/ (new)

Child, H, ed. The Calligrapher's Handbook. 2nd Ed. Taplinger. New York:1986.

Drogin, M. Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique.  Dover. New York:1980.

Harris, D. The Art of Calligraphy. Dorling Kindersley. New York:1995.

Merrifield, M. Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting: Original Texts with English Translations. Dover. New York:1967

Shailor, B. The Medieval Book. U. Toronto Press. Toronto:1994

Vinas, S. & E, Farrell. The Technical Analysis of Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts. Harvard UAM. Cambridge, MA:1999

Page 2: Pictures and additional comments regarding creation of book.

Elyse C. Boucher (Milwaukee area, Wisconsin; merouda@hotmail.com) is the dubious result of a graduate level education in psychology. She's a research geek and an arts and sciences maniac. She's currently running a Day Services Program for individuals with mental retardation in order to get money to pay for her A&S habit.

Merouda Pendray is a Protestant Tudor era woman from Cornwall, currently living in exile in the Lowlands while Mary sits the throne of England. She is attached to a Protestant household there, and rather than embroider with the other ladies of the household, she earns her keep writing letters and painting small limnings.