Some ‘Hairy’ Medieval Books Were Covered in Sealskin, and Researchers Don’t Know Exactly Why
Historians were surprised when analyses revealed Catholic monks used pinniped hides for the protective outer layer on some manuscripts, rather than skins from the local boars and deer
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In medieval Europe, scribes often wrapped their books in a protective outer layer made from the hairy hides of local land mammals, such as deer or boar. But in some instances, they also used sealskin, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, which points to a fur trade network.
Researchers were perplexed by a set of 12th- and 13th-century manuscripts from northeastern France that were clad in mysterious, furry outer covers. These early versions of modern dust jackets—known as chemises—didn’t seem to be made of the typical deer or boar skin. The hair follicles didn’t look right.
So, a cross-disciplinary team of scientists started to investigate. After taking small samples from the covers, they used several techniques—including mass spectrometry and DNA analysis—to determine which animals they’d come from.
They were surprised to learn the books were bound in the skins of harbor seals, harp seals and bearded seals. The pinnipeds appeared to have come from Scandinavia, Denmark, Scotland and Greenland or Iceland.
“I was like, ‘That’s not possible. There must be a mistake,’” says study lead author Élodie Lévêque, a historian and book conservator at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, to Science News’ Alex Viveros, describing when she got the results back from a lab. “I sent it again, and it came back as seal skin again.”
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The researchers focused on books from Clairvaux Abbey in Champagne, France, which had a massive library of handmade manuscripts. Established in 1115, the abbey housed an order of Catholic monks known as the Cistercians, who were also known as the “White Monks” for their light-colored robes.
The team also investigated fuzzy books from Clairvaux’s “daughter abbeys” elsewhere in France, as well as in England and Belgium. These, too, were bound in sealskin, which suggests “a strong connection between the use of these unique bindings and the specific traditions and practices of this particular Clairvaux lineage,” the authors write in the paper.
All the abbeys were situated along European and Norse trading routes, so the skins were likely obtained through trade.
“It’s a popular assumption that people didn’t move around, but these monastic institutions are part of this amazing network of goods, books and ideas,” says Mary Wellesley, a medieval scholar at the Institute of Historical Research in London who was not involved with the study, to the New York Times’ Jack Tamisiea.
It’s also possible, based on historical records, that Norse traders used the sealskins to pay tithes to the Catholic church, according to the paper.
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Many questions remain unanswered—chiefly, why did the monks choose sealskin? The use of this unusual material does not seem to be related to the content or intrinsic value of the books, as the authors write in the study.
The Cistercian monks might not have even realized the skins had come from seals. These marine mammals were rarely depicted in medieval art or coats of arms, and there was no French word for “seal” during this period, reports Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove.
Since no written records exist to explain the monks’ choices, researchers are left to speculate.
One possibility? The Cistercians loved the color white and “discreet forms of luxury,” Lévêque tells Live Science. The skins probably came from seal pups, which are born with soft, light-colored fur. So, at the time, the sealskins probably matched the White Monks’ preferred aesthetic. (Over the centuries, however, the book covers have aged to become brown, yellow and gray.)
“At the time, [they] would have looked completely like a teddy bear, but light in color,” Lévêque tells Science News.
