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Inspired by Christopher de Hamel and in the interests of furthering manuscript research, I decided to see what parchment does indeed taste like #teachingmanuscripts
I'm not allowed to use a real medieval manuscript, so I used a small strip of goat parchment that I made myself 
I chewed. The texture was rubbery. The taste was uninspiring. I got a very, very tiny olfactory tingle in the back of the throat, like when you eat goats cheese but on a much lesser scale
Like everything to do with medieval manuscript production, you have to make or source it yourself - no trips to local art stores for ready-made supplies. So how did they make paintbrushes? Animal hair (as today) was considered the best type of brush
Theophilus in his twelfth-century treatise, On Diverse Arts, mentions that paintbrushes can be made from the tail of a martin, badger, squirrel, or cat or from the mane of a donkey (bk 2, ch. 17).
Hmmm - I do have plenty of cats ... this is just a small sample
Hmmm - I do have plenty of cats ... this is just a small sample
Let's make some medieval lye (la lye, lye la lye la lye la lye 🎵). Lye is also known as potash or lixivium. It's a strong alkali and the basic ingredient of soap. Yes, the medievals washed! #teachingmanuscripts #medievalpigments
Lye is completely natural and once again nature is completely AMAZING. A big lovely tree sucks up all the nutrients from the soil through its roots (including potassium). Big lovely tree gets cut down and used for firewood 🙁
The wood all burns away and leaves nothing but ashes. BUT - the ashes contain lots of alkali-rich things like potassium and calcium carbonate. You know what's good for getting things clean? Alkali-rich things! (The word alkali comes from the Arabic al-qaly, which means ashes)
I want some alum-tawed thongs for a bookbinding project. Does a search on the internet help? It does not (unless I want a whole animal skin for £££). But I DO have a sheep skin that I salted from last year. So I’m going to make my own #teachingmanuscripts
I cut off some strips from the bottom of the skin and give it a bit of a haircut
I need to rinse all the salt out first in water. I got this skin last October and salted it straight away. It’s been stored all winter in an airtight container, and it looks pretty good 👍
Time to smash some lapis! #teachingmanuscripts
Make sure your pestle is wearing a pretty skirt when grinding the smaller chunks, otherwise you’ll lose some lapis
Separating the impurities before grinding any finer 😩
I made some purple parchment! #teachingmanuscripts #medievalmanuscripts #medievalstuffwithcats @IES_London @LondonRareBooks
Tyrian (or imperial) purple was by far the most superior colour in the ancient and medieval world, but is very expensive. Mohammed Ghassen Nouira makes Tyrian purple using traditional Phoenician methods, with fantastic results. I hope to work with him soon facebook.com/Pourpre-de-Car…
Orchil purple, obtained from lichens, was a cheaper alternative, and probably used in the Book of Kells. However, it is hard to source and ecologically unwise to do so. Isabella Whitworth has done a lot of work on dyeing textiles with orchil isabellawhitworth.com/2013/09/17/tal…
