This panel of an animal skin is 26.6 cm x 26.6 cm. It was embroidered by either Mary, Queen of Scots, or Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, using a linen canvas with silk threads between 1570 and 1585. The animal is named incorrectly by the V&A as a civet cat; it is rather the skin of a common genet (Genetta genetta).

The animal can be identified by an inscription to the surface of the object, which reads ‘A GENE SKYN’. The image seems to be based on the woodcut of a genet’s skin that appears in the monumental Historia animalium (Book I De quadrupedibus viviparis, Zurich, 1551) and in the abbreviated Icones animalium (1553), works by the Swiss physician and natural philosopher Conrad Gessner.  For Gessner, genets had the nature of a cat and a shape resembling a weasel. He cites Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576), regarding the genet as having ‘more noble’ fur (along with the lynx) and that this fur was black and ash-coloured, with many distinct spots.

Gessner noted that he himself had seen had seen the skin of a genet, which was, from the head to the top of the tail, the length four dodrans (3/4 of a foot) and one palm, with the tail being two dodrans. He could see eight black circles on this particular specimen’s tail, along with white and grey patches. It was possible to discern ‘very elegant’ black spots all over the body. Gessner also remarked on the very good smell of the skin, which smelled like musk. Considering its size, the spots, and its nature, Gessner judged the animal to be a kind of small panther.

The skins were imported from Spain via Lyons and used for precious garments, imbued with an agreeable scent. Mary, Queen of Scots, also used Gessner woodcuts as the model for another embroidery of an animal, that of a cat (‘A catte’, Royal Collection Trust. RCIN 28224).

KWM

Further Reading:

• Conrad Gesner, Historia animalium: De quadrupedibus viviparis (Zurich, 1551)
  
• Conrad Gesner, Icones animalium (Zurich, 1553)
  
• Margaret Swain, The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots (Carlton, 1973)
  

Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London (museum no. T.33FF-1955)

In this portrait by Paolo Veronese, the Countess Livia da Porto Thiene has her zibellino draped over her right arm. This accessory made of weasel fur has a jewelled gold head, which is attached to the girdle around Livia's waist. In addition  to the sable fur of the zibellino, Livia's cloak is lined with lynx fur.

The fur of many members of the weasel family (Mustelidae), including martens, stoats, mink, and sable, were highly prized in early modern Europe. Women in the sixteenth-century were accustomed to draping a single whole pelt (complete with the head and front and back paws) over their shoulders or their arm. The head was sometimes replaced with a high-quality replica made of metal or glass, such as the gem-set and enamelled gold weasel head seen below. The animal’s nose would often be pierced with a ring, which would be attached by a chain to the wearer’s waist. These highly valued accessories, known as zibellini, are prevalent in portraiture, inventories, accounts, lists of dowry payments, and other written documents. The pelt was customarily purchased from a furrier and taken to a jeweller, who would then add the chain or head if desired.

Jewelled zibellino head, 1550s. Walters Art Gallery

The weasel has long been associated with childbirth. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, the goddess Juno transforms Galanthis (the maid of Alcmena, mother of Hercules) into a weasel, condemned to give birth through her mouth. Bestiaries and popular texts on animals in the medieval and early modern period informed the reader that weasels conceived either through their ears or mouths and gave birth through either of these orifices. The zibellino may have thus been conceived as an amulet for easy childbirth, making it ideal as a gift for young brides. In addition to its symbolic value, the zibellino was a marker of wealth and status, very often made of valuable high-quality fur and precious materials. One such example is the zibellino imported into London by the Italian merchant Cristoforo Carcano in 1544: ‘one martron skynne with the head and claws of gold, the head garnished with iii emeralds, ii diamonds and iii rubies. A carcan of gold garnished with iiii great table diamonds, iiii great rocke rubies, viii great pearls and a pearl pendant, a chain, a girdle, two crosses and two rings’.

KWM

Further Reading:

• Tawny Sherrill, 'Fleas, Furs, and Fashions: Zibellini as Luxury Accessories of the Renaissance' in Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (eds.), Medieval Clothing and Textiles, vol. 2, pp. 121-50
  
• Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, 'Weasels and pregnancy in Renaissance Italy', Renaissance Studies, 15.2 (June 2001:172-87)
  
• Evelyn Welch and Juliet Claxton, 'Easy Innovation in Early Modern Europe' in Evelyn Welch (ed.), Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles, and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800 (Oxford, 2017)
  

Main image:  Paolo Veronese, Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and her daughter Deidamia, 1552. Walters Art Gallery

This cylindrical, sewn, leather bottle is known as costrel, or pilgrim flask, which was a small, barrel-shaped flask or bottle most frequently used to carry beer or water. The opening at the top allowed liquid to be poured in or out of the vessel and the two lug holes on either side of the neck would have held a strap by which to carry the bottle. Surviving examples can also be found in ceramic or stoneware, but leather was an ideal material for this type of portable flask as it was light yet strong and, crucially, waterproof.

This seventeenth-century example is held by the National Leather Collection and is typical of costrels of the period. The stopper is no longer present, but it is likely that it would have been made of wood. The body of the vessel is made from cuir bouilli, meaning that the tanned hide was treated in wax and immersed in boiling water to render it tough, rigid, and waterproof. Still wet, the leather was placed around a cylindrical form and allowed to dry, before two disks were stitched at each end using thread that had been soaked in wax or animal fat. Some examples have additional leather bindings to reinforce the seams. The initials ‘TH’ have been tooled into the leather just below the neck of the flask. It is possible that these are the initials of the bottle’s owner but, given the wide circulation of these types of flask, it probably had more than one owner. The body of the flask is stamped with star-shaped marks arranged to form tessellating diamonds.

Extant costrels from this period are remarkably consistent in form and appear to have similar proportions, suggesting that their production was standardised to hold a specific measure of liquid. This may have been for tax purposes, as the first tax on beer was introduced by Cromwell’s regime in 1643. Many thousands of these bottles were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but they were less prevalent in the eighteenth century, probably due to the increased availability of porcelain vessels imported from China. However, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that these leather costrels remained popular on board the ships that brought porcelain to England, as a flask made of leather was not liable to break if it was dropped when the ships were buffeted by stormy seas.

JC

Image: Leather costrel, 17th century, National Leather Collection, Northampton

Although historians of the Inquisition have tended to focus primarily on the sixteenth century, throughout the seventeenth century the Holy Office was actively involved in pursuing sortilege and witchcraft of all sorts.

In the summer of 1699, the Inquisition of Bologna heard the deposition of a certain Ludovico Zanardi, who was so shocked by what he had heard from a local courtesan that he felt compelled to report it:

Zanardi added that the Venetian woman, whom he knew was a 'whore', used to utter some mysterious words when she held that caul in her hands.

The caul, or amniotic membrane (here called pellicola and pelle, both of which are variations on the word for ‘skin’), sometimes also referred to as the umbilical cord, was often at the centre of the Inquisition’s trials for sortileges in the late seventeenth century. The caul, the placenta, and the amniotic membrane – all parts that also attracted the attention of learned physicians – were traditionally associated with liminal spaces between life and death. Traditionally, they were also credited with different kinds of powers to affect the lives of those people coming into contact with them, either by wearing them around the neck or keeping them in one’s pocket. For example, in sixteenth-century northeastern Italy, the caul was supposed to protect soldiers from blows and to help lawyers win their cases. As such, it was both an epistemic object and an object endowed with magical powers.

B.1883, Processi S. Ufficio, Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna

Domenica was called to defend herself and her mistress against the accusation of witchcraft, though admitting that her mistress was a woman who had 'lovers'.

The choice of words of the actors of the trial is significant, as they both called the caul ‘cuticle’ and ‘skin’. The fact that in popular religious practices the caul was associated with the skin tells us something about a convergence between learned, medical experts and a popular, lay view that considered the skin a porous boundary. A boundary standing between the internal and external, life and death, and bad or good fortune. In the end, Domenica was acquitted.

PS

Further Reading:

• Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Baltimore, 1992)
  
• Linda Deer Richardson, Academic Theories of Generation in the Renaissance: The Contemporaries and Successors of Jean Fernel (1497-1558) (Berlin, 2018)
  

Main image: The caul of a newborn, taken from Cornelius Gemma, De naturae divinis characterismis; sev raris et admirandis spectaculis, causis, indiciis, proprietatibus rerum in partibus singulis universi, libri II (Antwerp: Cristophe Plantin, 1575)

Works of leather and objects made from animal skin were ubiquitous in the early modern period. Across Europe, guilds and companies of leatherworkers controlled trade and took responsibility for transmitting the practical know-how to their members. Leather was not only used for clothes and furniture, but characteristically, it was turned into complex wall decorations, often 'engraved' with special gold and silver 'inks'.

In June 2018, the Renaissance Skin team visited the Museo del tessuto e della tappezzeria Vittorio Zironi in Bologna. Only recently reopened, it holds a vast collection of textiles, works of leather, and related tools and machinery. Amongst the highlights of the collection are the 17^th-century leather wall decorations and – unique for this material – the moulds used to stamp drawings and decorations upon them (see main image).

In the late 16^th century, polymath Tommaso Garzoni wrote a detailed description of the art and techniques of the 'masters of leatherwork' (maestri di corami), by then a professional group distinct enough to earn an entry in Garzoni’s encyclopaedia of professions. Garzoni began his description by recalling the ambiguous and potentially polluting world of skin and leatherworkers: this is a wonderful and useful art – he says – but all of its masters are known to be 'the most humble plebeians'. It is 'a dirty, fetid and stinky job; in time of plague they [the masters of leatherwork] are the first among those who are banned, as they are accused of corrupting the air of the cities because they pollute the waters in which they wash their animal skin, which are themselves badly smelling. For these reasons they establish their business in secluded places, because the illnesses coming from this rot are all too serious'.

17th-century leather wall decorations. Museo Vittorio Zironi, Bologna

17th-century wooden mould. Museo Vittorio Zironi, Bologna.

Garzoni then turns to providing an actual description of the technique. In particular, he praises the skills of those who made 'golden leather'. Spain is the place where the best leatherworkers live, but the author also mentions the Neapolitans. First of all, they wash the skin and they gently tan them (2:1038-39): 'They use those skins that shoemakers use to line the shoes; these skins need to be smooth and clean, with no traces of fur'. The skins are placed in a water basin for one night, 'and then they are beaten up on a smooth stone'; the skins are washed again, and the remaining water is squeezed out. 'After having done all this, leatherworkers place the skin on a large smooth stone and stretch it with a special iron tool, before drying it very carefully. Then they place a certain glue made with pieces of parchment paper on the skin [...] in order to cover it all before hanging it to dry'. The skin is then nailed to a wooden table to dry some more and placed upon the stone again, where it is 'burnished with a burnisher made of lapis ematitis [an iron-like mineral used in cosmetics and in metallurgy] that makes it shiny and beautiful'.

Once the artisans have done this, they must have at hand a mould carved in a drawing table, with which the leather must be worked by using a special ink made with a resin solvent and gold or silver powder. The skin must be placed on the mould (la stampa) to be printed and dried. Once it is dry it must be placed on wooden tables where it is gilded. Then, with a knife, the mould must be removed. Finally, the pieces of skin can be cut and sewn together: 'and the work is done'.

In the hands of skilfull artisans, animal surfaces follow a cycle that moves from a potentially polluting raw material to the most refined wall decoration, one of the staples of status and 'civility' in early modern Europe. Dirt, foul odours, rotting natural stuff once again provided artisans the material to make objects and to know nature.

PS

Further Reading:

• John W. Waterer, John Waterer's Guide to Leather Conservation and Restoration (revised and abridged) (Northampton, 1986), a shortened version of John Waterer, A Guide to the Conservation and Restoration of objects made wholly or in part of leather (London, 1972)
• J.W. Waterer, 'On Leathercraft' in Harold Osborne (ed.), The Oxford Companion to the Decorative Arts (Oxford, 1975), pp.537-46
• Roy Thomson, 'Leather manufacture in the post-medieval period with special reference to Northamptonshire', Post-Medieval Archaeology 15 (1981): 161-75

Main image: 17th-century wooden mould. Museo Vittorio Zironi, Bologna.

Exploring the material and olfactory world of Renaissance skin, this post is an appetiser for an article that I have been working on for a while now.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, head and facial hair, as well as skin, were intrinsically linked with scented matter. Faces and hands were treated with medicinal and cosmetic remedies; and perfumed accessories and textiles such as gloves, jewellery (including buttons) and the like became highly popular, shaping what Evelyn Welch has termed the ‘olfactory imprints’ of early modern individuals.

Recently, historians have sparked debate on the role of such scented materials, revealing, for example, the astonishing significance of perfumed gloves in early modern Italy and England. In Elizabethan London, artisans invested considerable effort in fostering and maintaining international networks for acquiring the materials needed for perfuming gloves. A similarly burgeoning exchange of scented accessories took place between Italy and Spain in the 16th century. In particular, Welch’s research has shown that ‘a plethora of new forms of perfumed accessories […] were widely distributed across Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century’. Surprisingly, Reformation Germany remains still a blank spot on the map of early modern European scented matter.

This is even more surprising given the fascinating archival material that awaits its discovery by historians who study the world of matter and its relationship with the body and the senses. For instance, the court of Duke Ernest I of Saxe-Gotha (1640-75) invested regularly in ‘well-scented gloves’ (wolriechende Handschue) that were worn by the Duke, his wife Elisabeth Sophie, and his daughters Elisabeth Dorothea and Dorothea Maria. Such accessories were bought routinely at both rather reasonable and quite expensive cost in Erfurt and Nuremberg. Here, merchants, grocers, tanners, bag-makers, and glove-makers all had specialised their businesses in the manufacturing, perfuming, and selling of gloves (see main image). On at least one occasion, in August 1641, Duke Ernest purchased three pairs of perfumed gloves for the duchess. She returned the favour when she bought similarly perfumed gloves for her husband in 1673. It would also seem that ‘well-scented gloves’ were popular Christmas presents given to the young princes and princesses at the Gotha court. From these references we can see that perfumed gloves were also highly sought-after products in Protestant Germany.

A woodcut portraying Elector Palatine Louis VI holding a leather glove, 1583. Image © Kurpfälzisches Museum der Stadt Heidelberg, S 5591

Yet there is much more to say than merely about their popularity, since the sources give considerable detail on the fragrances of the gloves. Just a month before Duke Ernest was about to die, he commissioned ‘a pair of black perfumed mourning gloves’ to be purchased. These seem to have been infused with special odours. In a period that considered the body porous and unstable, scents like those containing musk were considered to animate the heart and the vital spirits, yet similar fragrances could also create the ‘right’ atmosphere to prepare for death or mourning loss. To maintain the desired scents of these textiles, the goods were stored in tiny chests (kästlein), the costs of which are likewise recorded in the sources. Gloves perfumed in the ‘Roman’ manner seemed to have been particularly popular in Lutheran Gotha.

What it actually meant to desire, prepare, and wear perfumed gloves is well documented for another Protestant milieu. Several recipes for perfuming gloves and, for instance, ‘to make a pleasant-tasting water for the face, hands, and gloves’ survive from the personal collection of the Lutheran Elector Palatine Louis VI (1576–83) (see image). The recipes reveal the efforts that were invested in producing the scents and in treating the textiles. Both domestic and foreign plants, fruits, resins, oils, herbs, and lards were processed and applied to achieve, for example, a ‘deliciously lovely or semi-sweet (lieblichenn) flavour and scent’. According to the recipes, many olfactory treatments attracted the nose as much as the palate. To accomplish such precious sensory experiences, ingredients of German, French, Italian, and even Mediterranean origin were processed.

Intermediate step of a mixture which Louis VI used for perfuming and whitening the skin of the face and the hands. On the surface is grinded mastic, a yellowish gum taken from the mastic tree in Greece, which forms one of the many ingredients. Image ©Stefan Hanß

In order to fully understand the material dynamics of the sensory world of hands and their textile accessories, for a while now I have been engaged in remaking the 16th-century recipes of the Elector Palatine Louis VI (see image). I hope that future remaking experiments I intend to conduct with students from the University of Manchester will contribute further to exploring this topic. Particularly fascinating is the way in which recipes for perfumed textiles interacted with cosmetic recipes for hands. We read in one set of instructions for whiter hands how you should ‘take lemon juice with a bit of dried and ground salt’. You should then ‘wash your hands with this and let them dry off by themselves. It removes all spots, blemishes, and damages’. Considering the myriad of lemons that the court apothecary of Gotha purchased in Erfurt, cosmetic remedies of this kind also seem to have had medicinal implications that further correspond with the appearance of accessories and textiles. Duke Ernest owned a brown-coloured coat which was embroidered with gold and silver threads and prepared with ‘lemon-coloured velvet’. Another coat, likewise embroidered with gold and silver, was padded with ‘peach-coloured plush’. Referencing fruits when wearing, seeing, and describing textiles surely also communicated the very sensory qualities like fragrance or taste that fruits were associated with. This is even more compelling since such textiles referencing fruits actively interacted with the skin and other cloths that were treated and decorated with the very same fruits and flowers. Golden and silver roses – maybe themselves perfumed – were sewn into one of the doublets of Ernest, whose wardrobe also comprised another ‘perfumed leather doublet’ as well as ‘perfumed furs’. All this moulded together the olfactory regimes of skins and the textiles and accessories surrounding them.

We read in another recipe from 16th-century Heidelberg that ‘to make hands white’ chalk should first be seethed and then ground down before being mixed with three or four egg whites of particularly white appearance. Around 30 grams of mastic – a yellowish resin taken from the mastic tree in Chios – and 15 grams of camphor were added to the paste, which was mixed, distilled, and finally concocted (see video). Remaking such recipes from early modern Protestant Germany made me realise why they were called an ‘art’ (kunst).

A 16th-century depiction of the method of distillation from Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de arte Distillandi de Compositis (…) (Strasbourg, 1512), f. CXXXIXv. Image © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München. Rar. 2166, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00005369-9

Those crafting the olfactory world of Renaissance skins – skins of either human or animal bodies – required considerable material knowledge about the properties, treatments, behaviours, and effects of matter when moulding the affective world of skins in relation to objects, bodies, and the senses (see image). It is a pity that this blog entry, as with any written record, cannot capture the olfactory experience of smelling these remade perfumes. This, however, is something that I will explore together with my students in Manchester and which will finally lead to the promised article.

Stefan Hanß

Further Reading:

• Holly Dugan, The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England (Baltimore, 2011).
  
• David Karmon and Christy Anderson, ‘Early Modern Spaces and Olfactory Traces’ in Catherine Richardson, Tara Hamling and David Gaimster (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Material Culture in Early Modern Europe (Abingdon, 2016), 354–70
  
• Alisha Rankin, Panaceia’s Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany (Chicago and London, 2013)
  
• Evelyn Welch, ‘Art on the Edge: Hair and Hands in Renaissance Italy’, Renaissance Studies 23, no. 3 (2009): 241–68
  
• Evelyn Welch, ‘Scented Buttons and Perfumed Gloves: Smelling Things in Renaissance Italy’ in Bella Mirabella (ed.) Ornamentalism: The Art of Renaissance Accessories (Ann Arbor, 2011), 13–39
  

Main image: Hans Praun, A Nuremberg bag-maker offering leather gloves in his store, 1615. Image © Stadtbibliothek im Bildungscampus Nürnberg, Amb. 279.2°, fol. 87v (Landauer I), http://www.nuernberger-hausbuecher.de/75-Amb-2-279-87-v

Dr Stefan Hanß is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Manchester. His research centres on early modern material culture and cultural encounters. Hanß conducts archival and object-based research on the global history of early modern feather-workers and the history of hair in the Habsburg Empire. In his studies, Hanß explores new methods, trajectories, and tools in material culture studies such as the use of digital microscopes, remaking experiments, and historians’ collaborations with artisans.

Fifteenth-century memoirs and household inventories contain a surprising number of entries concerning the use of fine furs among members of the patrician class. Prized pelts were mainly used as linings for clothing, with the fur placed on the inside of the garment in close contact with the body. This trend reached its peak between the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries, as the expensive silk or velvet cioppa (a long-sleeved overdress) gained popularity.

The rich and the powerful looked down on domestic furs and preferred pelts from wild animals such as vair (the fur from Russian or Siberian grey squirrels), which were imported from Constantinople, the largest and most important fur market. The fur trade must have reached astonishing proportions if we consider that lining a single cioppa required between 600 and 2,050 vairs, depending on the fullness of the garment.

Detail showing the fur lining of a garment, from Zanobi Strozzi (attr.), The Abduction of Helen, c.1450-1455. Image © The National Gallery of London

In addition to the conspicuous demonstration of wealth, owning wild animal furs also indicated that the wearer descended from good lineage, able to dress as befitted a noble station thanks to an exemption from the restrictions imposed by contemporary sumptuary laws. A Florentine decree of 1330 was the first to restrict the use of ermine to nobles and their ladies, while vair was assigned to judges, notaries, and physicians as a symbol of their learned status. Giovanni Boccaccio notes this custom in the Decameron (VIII, 9), describing a Florentine who had gone to the University of Bologna to obtain a degree in medicine and ‘returned (…) in mantle and hood of vair’.

From the 1430s, vair furs were less in demand than sable and marten. Marking this shift in taste, a 15th-century sonnet expresses the regrets of a vair. Speaking in the first person, it reflects on how its fur had become accessible to all – ‘once in every realm I was the ornament of ladies and knights’. It is with a heavy heart that it then admits that ‘where once I was thought the finest, now I am considered cheaper than a mouse’. Although not rare nor overly expensive, vairs continued to be widely used in women’s clothing. The white fur was strikingly similar to ermine, a traditional symbol of purity.

Patricia Lurati

Further Reading:

• Robert Delort, Le commerce des fourrures en Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge (vers 1300-vers 1450) (Rome, 1978)

Patricia Lurati received her PhD from the University of Zurich. Her research focused on exotic animals in 14- and 15th-century Florence. She is the recipient of numerous Swiss research grants and her work focuses on Italian Renaissance. She is the author of Doni nuziali del Rinascimento nelle collezioni svizzere (2007), La chiesa di sant’Antonio abate a Morcote (2015), and ‘“To dust the pelisse”: the erotic side of fur in Italian Renaissance Art’, in Renaissance Studies (2017). In 2014, she curated the exhibition Doni d’amore. Donne e rituali nel Rinascimento held at the Pinacoteca Giovannni Züst in Rancate, Switzerland. She is currently curating an exhibition on contemporary fashion to be held at Palazzo Pitti in 2019 and she is a part-time lecturer in the History of Italian Fashion at New York University in Florence.

As a substitute for pigments and mineral colours such as turquoise and lapis lazuli, the kingfisher feather was overwhelmingly desired and consumed in China for over 2,000 years. The name ‘kingfisher blue’ refers to the iridescent bluish, sometimes turquoise, colour produced by the intricate structural arrangement of the feather from certain subspecies of the Alcedinidae family. This includes the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), the white-throated kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis), and the oriental dwarf kingfisher (Ceyx erithaca). Valued as a precious item, the kingfisher feather was extremely difficult to obtain, and its transportation involved transregional and even transnational logistics and supply chains.

Kingfishers could not be bred, and they could die easily if taken from their natural habitat. Some species could be found in areas of southern China, such as Sichuan, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Hainan, yet the supply of raw feathers relied heavily on imports from those South Asian countries and vassal states which had tribute relations with China. Chenla (Cambodia), Luohu and Siam (Thailand), Jiaozhi (Annam), Chiem Thanh, Trincomalee (Sri Lanka), and Bengal, for example, were recorded as major suppliers.

Zhang Weibang (?), Yu Sheng (1692-1767), 'Siam kingfisher' (Xianluo cui) or 'white-throated kingfisher' (Halcyon smyrnensis) in Album on Birds, vol. 10 (1750-1761), The Palace Museum Beijing.

In Qing China, Siam contributed a large number of feathers. In 1663, ‘Siam sent tributes on the occasion of the [Kangxi] Emperor’s birthday, which included […] six hundred pieces of kingfisher feather; tributes to the empress in the same year included […] three hundred pieces of kingfisher feather.’ (General History of Guangzhou, 1730, vol. 58). Compiled between 1750 and 1761 under the commission of the Qianlong Emperor (r.1735-1796), the Album of Birds reveals that kingfishers from Siam reached the court and were integral to Qing knowledge of distant worlds (see figure).

Together with precious frontier goods such as rhinoceros horn, fur, shark skin, peacock feather, red coral, and ambergris (grey amber), kingfisher feather was considered as a ‘local product’ from the barbaric regions. As such, its delivery, distribution, and use were central to the maintenance of China's tribute system. Despite a limited number of illegal imports dispersed throughout the market, kingfisher feather was consumed and disseminated mainly within court circles and so established connections with Han Chinese royalty. 

The making of kingfisher inlay, called ‘dotting with kingfisher blue’ (diancui), is a complicated metalworking technique. The full process moves from feather selection, cleaning, trimming, gluing, inlaying, and finally to the application of additional embellishments (Wong, ‘Kingfisher Blue in Ming Arts’, p.147). As the natural product varied in quality, only a small percentage of collected feathers – the so-called ruancui (literally the soft-blue, down feathers) plucked from a kingfisher’s back – was considered useful. At best, each bird could only contribute 28 feathers. Unlike multi-angular gemstones, kingfisher feathers have a flat surface. With the use of fish or bone glue, each trimmed feather was pasted onto metal inlays of accessories and imperial wares to accentuate the vibrant colours of gold, pearls, and other precious stones. 

Kingfisher feather was not only considered as a luxury item, but also as an identity-conferring material. The nomadic people to the north of the Great Wall rarely had access to this material until the Manchus conquered China in 1644. Manchu noblewomen were aware of the feather’s close association with Han Chinese royalty. The rustic Baotou hairstyle (literally meaning ‘wrapped heads’) was characterised by being devoid of any hair accessories apart from Manchurian freshwater pearls, but these were soon replaced by opulent hairpins dotted with shining kingfisher blue. In the Qing imperial workshop, the production of kingfisher inlay was established no later than the third decade of the eighteenth century. 

Detail from section of Empress’s Portrait by Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) in Qianlong Emperor and His Twelve Consorts. Handscroll with ink and colour on silk. Image © The Cleveland Museum of Art

Many historical sources, from imperial sumptuary laws and non-imperial illustrations, strengthen the idea of a Manchu-Han Chinese dichotomy. Yet, extant Qing imperial accessories suggest that the kingfisher inlay was an essential aspect of Qing imperial femininity. Made of gold plate, an insignia badge that bears a symbol of longevity inlayed with kingfisher feathers proves to be the best evidence of the emergence of kingfisher feather in Qing material culture (see main image and figure).

As a result of Qing engagement with larger global dynamics enabled by well-established tributary and trade networks, kingfisher blue’s association with Han Chinese royalty seemed to have waned by the mid-eighteenth century. Its changing status from identity-conferring materials to luxury commodities was vividly captured in the emergence of Qing objects dotted with kingfisher blue. 

Lianming Wang

Further Reading: 

• Aida Yue Wong, 'Kingfisher Blue in Ming Arts: Status Symbol, Material Invention and Intercultural Connections' in Magdalena Bushart, Friedrich Steinle (eds.), Colour Histories. Science, Art, and Technology in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Berlin and Boston, 2014), pp.145-57
• Roderich Ptak, 'Eisvögel und Eisvogelfedern in China: Beschreibungen und Einfuhr aus maritimen Ländern (ca. 500-1500)' in Exotische Vögel: Chinesische Beschreibungen und Importe (Wiesbaden, 2006), pp.59-90
  

Main image: Insignia badge dotted with kingfisher blue, mid-eighteenth century, National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Lianming Wang is Assistant Professor in Chinese Art History at Heidelberg University. His research interests include the transcultural aspects of art history and the Imperial court workshops and court painting in the Qing dynasty.

A detailed inventory was drawn up in 1561 for William Herbert, 1^st Earl of Pembroke (1506/7-1570) listing all his moveable goods, from the many chairs in various properties to a ‘unicorns bone sett in golde with one turkois, two rubies and iii diamonde’. The manuscript is held in the collections of the National Art Library at the V&A (MSL/1982/30).

Within the inventory appears a list of his vast wardrobe, titled ‘An inventory of all suche apparel, furres and jewelles as be in the charge of Thomas Gregory, the xvii^th of August anno domini 1561’ (f.38r). The list is dominated by luxurious fabrics such as velvets, silks, satins, damasks, and taffetas. They were decorated with lace, pearls, aglets, and gold or enamelled buttons. Most of the outerwear is lined with expensive (and usually imported) furs. In fact, it is often noted in the inventory when these garments are not lined. So we read, ‘Item a night gowne of chaungeable taffeta, trimmed with parcement lace of chaungeable silke and golde, without furre or lyninge’ (f. 38v). Sometimes, two types of fur may be used, as in the case of the garment that is lined with squirrel fur and edged with sable fur. The following list of references are ordered by the main lining used under the respective animal fur.

Sable

Sable is a species of marten (Martes zibellina) that was famed for its soft dark-brown or black fur, a quality that was noted by Edward Topsell in his History of four-footed beasts (1607): The only price and estimation of this beast is for the skin, which farre excelleth all the skins of the World […] if you stroke them from the head to the tail, or on the contrary from the tail to the head, they do lie every way smooth’. Sables were imported from Russia and were the most expensive of furs.  According to Jacob Ziegler (d. 1549), their price  had 'growne to great excess, next unto gold and precious stones'.

Pembroke’s sable garments included:

• Item a longe gowne of blacke satten with longe sleves garded with blacke velvet, with ii weltes of velvet on bothe the sides of the garde, laide between upon the garde, with blacke satten and lace of blacke silke, with xliii buttons of golde and iii pearles on every button, furred throughout with sables (f.38r)
  
• Item a longe gowne of blacke damaske with a garde of velvet and a welte of velvet on either side of the garde, laide upon with a pomell lace of silke purled on the’one side, sett with viii greate buttons of golde with iii perles in every button, blacke, grene and blewe enamelled, furred with sables (f.38r)
  
• Item a gowne of blacke satten with ii gardes of blacke velvet passed through with satten and silke lace and laied overthwarte with pomell lace purled, furred throughout with sables (f.40r)
  
• Item a gowne of black satten with v weltes of weltes of [sic] velvett and pomell lace of black silke purled, furred throughout with sables sett with lvi golde buttons white enameled called paunses (f.41r)
  
• Item a gowne of blacke taffata with ii gardes of blacke velvet and a welte of velvet betwene the gardes, edge abaite the gardes and weltes with a purled lace of blacke silke, sett with ii dosen viii greate aglettes, enameled blewe and blacke with one pearle on the einde of every aglett, furred throughout with sables (f.40v)
  
• Item a gowne of black satten, faced with sable tayles and furred behinde with kidd, garded with velvelt and welted with the same overthwarte and cutte, sett with iii dosen paire aglettes white enameled (f.40v)

Lord Dacre wears a coat lined with lynx fur. Mary Neville, Lady Dacre; Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre by Hans Eworth; oil on panel, 1559; NPG 6855. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Lynx

Lynx was among the most expensive of furs to purchase in the sixteenth century. It was also one of the most distinctive, with its thick, spotted fur. The lynx has two coats: a short, reddish summer coat, and a thick grey-brownish winter coat. The latter was most valued for garments and, like sable, was imported from Russia. Pembroke owned two garments made with lynx fur, which was called lucerne. 

• Item a gowne of blewe velvet with v weltes of the same and blewe silke and silver lace purled on every side with iiii dosen golde buttons enamelled white and blewe called pawnses, furred throughout with lusernes (f.40v)
  
• Item a gowne of russet satten with ii plaine gardes of velvet, fringed on every side and a lace of blacke silke upon the garde, sett with two dosen viii paire of greate aglettes full of pearles and furred throughe out with lusarnes (f.40v)
  

Squirrel

Pembroke owned many garments lined with squirrel fur, which were often edged with other furs such as sable, wolf, or rabbit. The winter fur of red squirrels was most valued, in particular the soft, white belly fur and the dark, almost black, grey coat. The squirrel fur in this inventory is termed calabre (derived from the place name Calabria), however by this period it did not refer only to Italian squirrel skins but also to squirrel skins from Central Europe. By the end of the 16th century, the term also included Russian squirrel skins shipped from the Baltic. The inventory lists the following items lined with squirrel, which would have been considerably cheaper than lynx or sable fur: 

• Item a cote of black satten furred with calabre and edged with sables with iiii dosen viii buttons, black enameled with the garde sutelike to the cape (f.45r)
  
• Item a cote of shepes russett clothe with vi weltes of velvett, fringed on every side, furred with white calaber and edged with graye cony with vi dosen buttons black enameled (f.46r)
  
• Item a coate of black taffata welted with velvett, furred with white calaber and edged with greye wolfe (f.46r)
  
• Item a cassocke of russett sackclothe with iii weltes of russett velvett donne right, furred with calabre and edged with blacke wolfe, sett with iiii dosen vi buttons black enameled (f.46r)
  
• Item a cassocke of blacke clothe with vi laces about by ii and ii together with lowpe buttons of black silke, furred with calabre and edged with sables (f.46r)
  
• Item a cassocke of black velvett with vi laces aboute by ii and ii together with lowpe buttons of black silke, furred with calabre and edged with sables (f.46v)
  
• Item a cassocke of black satten with vi weltes of the same and betwene way two weltes a fringe of blacke silke and golde with lowpe buttons of black silke and golde, furred with calabre and edged with sables (f.46v)
  
• Item a cassock of russett velvett unshorne, trymmed about with a great parcement lace of russett silke and golde, furred with calabre, sett with iii dosen viii buttons blacke enameled (f.46v)
  
• Item an olde damaske cote imbrodered with pestoddes, furred with calabre (f.46v)
  
• Item a jerkin of white felt with sleves laied aboute with lace purled of crimsen silke and silver with xiii pointes of crimsen silke furred with white calabre (f.49v)
  

Rabbit

Rabbit (called cony) was a ubiquitous and inexpensive fur in the 16th century. Rarer varieties of rabbit could command a higher price and would not be considered out of place if worn at court. Black rabbit skins were considerably more expensive than grey ones, with black fur sprinkled with white hairs often costing around 6s. per skin. Black rabbit skins dominated the skinners’ trade for the high-end market and were also used to produce felt hats. Pembroke’s inventory lists a few garments lined with rabbit. 

• Item a night gowne of blacke clothe with vi rounde pomell lace of blacke silke aboute the same and lowpe buttons of black silke, furred through oute with blacke conye (f.38r)
  
• Item a night gowne of russelt velvet with iii parcement lace of silke and golde aboute the same lowpe buttons of silke and golde, furred throughout with graye cony (f.38r)
  
• Item a gowne of blacke velvett with ii plaine gardes of the same, furred with blacke conye (f.41r)
  

Polecat

Polecat (referred to as foyne) or common ferret (Mustela putorius) was not an expensive fur. It was easily available from many parts of Europe. The inventory lists only one garment lined with polecat.

• Item a longe gowne of russett taffata with ii gardes of velvet laide on with iiii pomell lace of russett silke, purled on bothe the sides and lowpe buttons of russett silke, furred throughout with foyne (f.38v)
  

Genet

Skins of the genet cat (Genetta genetta) were imported from Spain and North Africa. They were the most valuable of all small cats’ skins, with domestic cats’ skins being regarded as of lesser quality than the skins of wild cats. With the genet, darker fur was considered more valuable. Naturally, Pembroke had black genet skin lining some of his garments. 

• Item a gowne of blacke satten with vi rounde weltes of velvet, furred with blacke jennettes sett with iii dosen gold buttons, white blewe and blacke enamelled (f.40r)
  
• Item a gowne of blacke taffata with plaine gardes of blacke velvett, sett with ii dosen viii paire of greate aglettes enameled white, blewe and blacke with a pearle in the’einde of every aglett, furred throughout with blacke jennettes (f.40v)
  

 Read more on a genet cat skin embroidered panel in the V&A.

Fox

Fox could be a reference either to the red fox (vulpes vulpes) or the arctic fox (vulpes lagopus). The latter appears in the inventory in reference to a gown lined with the throats of white foxes. Red fox pelts were the most desired and came from northern regions where they would be thicker. They often displayed different colour patterns, such as grey or blackish variations. Fox-lined items within the inventory include: 

• Item a gowne of blacke buckram with v weltes of velvet and on every side the welte a lace of blacke silke, furred with the throtes of white foxes with xxxvi buttons, white enamelled damaskin (f.40r)
  
• Item a gowne of russett silke sackclothe with one broade garde and twoe little gardes of blacke velvet. furred with foxe, with lowpe buttons of blacke silke (f.40r)
  
• Item a cassocke of black buckeram with v weltes of velvett and on every side the weltes a black lace of silke, furred with foxe with iiii dosen iii buttons, white enameled (f.46v)
  

Ermine

Although not referenced directly, Pembroke’s coronation and parliamentary robes (listed along with his Garter robes) would have been lined with ermine. This was the winter coat of the stoat (Mustela erminea), characterised by a thick white fur all over the animal’s body save for a black tip on the tail. 

• Item the robes of the order, the robes of the coronation and for the parliament with theire whole furniture (f.38v)
  

Wolf

Grey wolf fur, including the melanistic black variety, was imported into England (often from Spain) to line male garments, such as: 

• Firste a gowne of blacke satten all imbrodred over with blacke silke with ii plaine gardes of blacke velvet, furred with graye wolferinges, sett with iii dosen and x damaskin buttons (f.40r)
  
• Item a gown of black taffata with a garde and two weltes of velvett laide on with lace of black silke, furred with black wolferinges sett with xl golde buttons white and black enameled (f.41r)
  
• Item a gowne of black damaske with iii plaine gardes of velvelt, fringed on every side, furred with graye wolfe sett with xxxvi paire aglettes, white enameled (f.41r)
  

Lambskin

The last of the furs we find are on those garments lined with lambskin (termed generically as budge), which might also be edged with animal furs such as wolf or rabbit. The specific term pampilion used in the accounts refers to lambskin from Pamplona, capital of the province Navarre in northern Spain, which was of a particularly fine quality. 

• Item a gowne of blacke satten with two plaine gardes of blacke velvet, furred with pampilion with iii dosen blacke silke buttons (f.40r)
  
• Item a gowne of black velvett imbrodered with hoopes furred with pampilion budge (f.42r)
  
• Item a coate of russett silke sackclothe [sic] with iii plaine gardes of black velvett, cutt and ravelled with black silke buttons, furred with white lambe and edged with graye wolferinges (f.46r)
  
• Item a jerkin of grene leather garded over with russett satten laied to on with russett silke and golde fringe and lace, lyned with redde pampilion with buttons of russett silke and golde and sleves to the same (f.49r)
  
• Item a jerkin of plaine black leather with sleves, furred with white lambe and leather buttons (f.49v)
  
• Item a jerkin with sleves of shepes colour with ii weltes of black velvett furred with white lambe and edged with greye cony (f.49v)
  

As an earl, Pembroke did not have to worry about sumptuary laws that restricted sables to the royalty, dukes, marquises, and earls; black genets and lynx fur to dukes, marquises, earls and their children, viscounts, barons, Knights of the Garter, and members of the Privy Council. Leopard skin was similarly restricted to these men, along with the sons of barons, knights, gentlemen attending her majesty, and ambassadors. Pembroke’s inventory is an invaluable source reflecting the widespread use of high-quality fur among the aristocracy in the Elizabethan period.

KWM

Further Reading:

• Natasha Awais-Dean, Bejewelled: Men and Jewellery in Tudor and Jacobean England (London, 2017)
  
• Elspeth M. Veale, The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages (London: London Record Society, 2003), British History Online (view here) [accessed 29 November 2018]
  

Cats, along with being valued as mousers and prized as pets by doting owners, were also extensively trapped, skinned, and sold and for their fur in medieval and early modern Europe. Two species of cats were used: the domestic cat (Felis catus) and the European wild cat (Felis silvestris). Professional furriers devoted themselves to the trade in wild cat skins, which were trapped by professionals. Wild cat fur was thicker and more luxuriant than that of a domestic cat. In addition, the markings and colour shade were fairly uniform, so that they could be sewn together with ease. Domestic cat skin had the disadvantage of involving variegated fur patterns and colours, so would produce an uneven effect if sewn together. A less than honest furrier could attempt to correct this issue by dying the fur, as evidenced by ‘cats painted’ being sold by members of the Skinner’s Company in 1533.

Cat fur was an inexpensive fur, and in English sumptuary legislation usually appeared at the bottom of the list (alongside lamb, rabbit, and fox) that could be worn by anyone regardless of social status. Similarly, due to restrictions on muffs made from furs such as sable in French sumptuary laws, cat (and dog) fur muffs were worn by those of lower status.  

There were still enough populations of wild cats in Scotland to play a role in the late medieval English fur trade, as evidenced in lists of tolls of fur exports between the two countries. Nevertheless, there was a medieval trade of wild cat skins from the continent to England, partly due to the colder winters in some parts of Europe, which meant that the winter furs of the same species were finer than their English equivalents. And of course, the lure of ‘foreign’ furs would have also been a factor in the importation of cat fur. Peter the Venerable, the twelfth-century abbot of Cluny, observed how some Frenchmen preferred Spanish or Italian cat skins to local ones.

However, by the early modern period, wild cat skins were overwhelming imported into England. A ship’s cargo of furs and skins docking in London in 1535 was valued at £50, and along with fox, beech marten, hare, kid, lynx and genet skins, it included “12 linings of catt poughtes” (cat paws, presumably the skin with extant limbs). Duties for imported cat skin into England in 1657 were assessed per barrel rather than per cat skin, with each barrel containing one hundred cat skins. Wild cat skins were among the huge amount of furs the Muscovy Company exported from Russia in the seventeenth century. A shipment from Arkhangelsk in 1663 had a huge amount of cat skins among its cargo of diverse furs, including beaver, seal, ermine, squirrel, and sable: 200,000  cat skins!

Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of His Fellow Prisoners (detail), c. 1500. Master of the Story of Joseph, Netherlands. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The trade in low-cost domestic cat skin was usually associated with pedlars and thieves, as it involved kidnapped pets and mousers.  Étienne Boileau, provost of Paris, listed the tax on wild cats at two pence per half a dozen skins. However, half a dozen "pelts of private cats, which are called cats of the fireside or of the hearth" were taxed at one penny. A thousand imported skins of "cats of the hearth" (catorum ignium) was taxed at only 4d when landing in Ipswich in 1303.

A small-scale trade in these skins was carried out by itinerant pedlars, who could trap unsuspecting pets out for a ramble. In William Langland’s late fourteenth-century work Piers Plowman, the personification of Avarice declares that “I have as moche pite of pore men as pedlere hath of cattes, That wolde kille hem, iy he cacche hem myghte, for coveitise of here skynnes.” This association continues in the early modern period. In The history of the blind beggar of Bednal-Green (1686), the beggar keeps three to four cat skins under heap of rags and shoes. When painting an image of a pedlar, Jheronimus Bosch includes a tabby cat skin hanging from the side of his pack.

Owing to the difficulty of getting a consistent pattern when sewing the skins together, cat skin was generally used for small objects, such as lining for gloves, muffs or cat skin purses. The anonymous poem Non-sense (1617) declares that “Not that a hard-roed herring should presume / To swing a tithe-pig in a cat-skin purse”. References to cat-skin purses turn up in all kinds of sources, such as Thomas Brown’s political dialogue The Reasons of the News Converts Taking Oaths to the Present Government where Conscience is characterised as a “Cat-skin pouch to put Mony in”. On a final slightly bizarre note, John Dunton’s The Dublin Scuffle (1699) recounts how a man with a "natural antipathy against Cats" commissioned a muff from a furrier with the strict proviso that it not be made with cat skin. The furrier nevertheless sells him a cat skin muff (presumably as a way of cutting costs) without the client knowing. The gentleman takes the muff away but on his way home, faints and does not recover until the feline furred object is removed from his presence. A discussion on the innate antipathy some people have against cats (and cheese) follows.

KWM

Image 1: Jheronimus Bosch, The Pedlar (circa 1494-1516) [detail]. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

See also: Genet cat skin

Further reading

• Raymond H. Fisher, The Russian Fur Trade 1550-1700 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943)
• Malcolm Jones, ‘The Catskin Carried by Bosch's "Prodigal Son"’, Notes and News on the Profane Arts 3:2  (1994), pp. 3-8
• Elspeth M. Veale, The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages (London: London Record Society, 2003), British History Online (view here https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol38) [accessed 27 February 2019]

On 14 December 1663 the clergyman and writer John Beale appeared before the Royal Society to discuss the making of parchment, and was subsequently invited to submit a series of reports on the subject. These included illustrations of the frame on which the clean skin was hung to dry, and detailed description of the techniques involved in scudding and shaving the skin. Beale's submissions to the Royal Society were part and parcel of the institution's fascination with the natural knowledge involved in the production of crafts. For the Renaissance Skin project they are revealing, not just for what they tell us about the skill involved in making early modern parchment, but also for the knowledge of skin on which the work relied, and the kind of skin product in which it resulted.

Parchment is a material made from the untanned skin of an animal, most often goat, sheep or cow. Although parchment and the more refined vellum (parchment made from calf-skin) are usually associated with the medieval period, parchment remained an important material throughout the early modern era. Parchment remained the writing-surface of choice for the growing range of experts in manuscript culture, such as calligraphers, book binders, producers of heraldry, print-makers, collectors and more. Moreover, while parchment is traditionally regarded as a writing material, the range of objects that involved parchment were (and are) considerably more varied than that. As Martin Engelbrecht's c.1730 print of a female parchment-seller illustrates, drums, fans and frames were all items commonly made from parchment. Early modern examples of such items still feature in museum collections, as do organs, bows, items of furniture, wall-coverings and purses. To name just one example Isaac Newton's telescope, bound in vellum, remains in the collection of the Royal Society, which also houses Beale's report. Taking into account the wider world of objects never collected in museums, (glue for example) one can imagine an early modern society extensively familiar with the handling of parchment. The function of parchment in such objects reflects the qualities of skin itself: tensile, strong, unique from skin to skin. Audience members in Beale's session had personal, sensory and tactile relations with parchment items, and thus with the characteristics of skin that they communicated.

Matin Engelbrecht, Parchementiere, c.1730. British Museum, 1996,1103.85

But parchment did not just bequeath knowledge of skin. It relied on it. The history of parchment making is characterized by remarkable continuity in technique. A hundred years before Beale, Jost Ammann illustrated similar steps of the process in Germany, in his 1568 Book of Trades. Five centuries later, the last parchment factory in England still uses these techniques. The master craftsmen still working there were generous enough to provide our project with detailed insight into the process of making parchment, and the kind of relationship with skin it involves. For example, the first item with which Beale's report was concerned was the hanging frame on which the skin dried out. The parchment makers with which we spoke explained that this step requires a deep familiarity with the 'force lines' of skin, which has to be stretched very slowly, in such a way that the tension exerted by the drying out process will not make it so brittle that it snaps. Finding the lines of tension resides somewhere between visual and tactile knowledge of the skin. They differ from skin to skin. After locating the end points to these lines, the parchment-maker 'ties in' the skin and the process of shaving begins. Beale's second report shows the 'lunar' blade, as it is known today, a semicircular half moon of an object (Jost Ammann's parchment-maker is holding this in his hand). This is wielded to remove the lanolin, the oils on top of the skin. Beale describes this process as "a various motion in a rambling manner", but the implication that this might be haphazard or unintentional is misleading. Shaving the skin in this manner involves a huge degree of physical strength, and, like the tying-in of the skin, a near-intuitive feel for the placement and motion of the knife. At every stage of parchment making a feel for readiness plays an important role. Smell is crucial here, the parchment makers told us. Overall, making parchment requires sensory knowledge as well as manual dexterity.

The finished product reflects its former life as skin in a way that even a lay bystander can appreciate. While the craft of the maker is evident in the fineness of the texture, which varies from the dark, aged appearance of parchment made from animals that have died of natural causes to the near translucent vellum, like a fingerprint, every skin is unique. Once crafted the parchment itself continues to bear the marks of the living skin. Veins, vessels, age, the health of the animal, marks of ill treatment, the vibrancy of a well-fed animal, even the marks of sun-tanning remain visible on the surface. Looking at parchment, the maker told us, can tell you about more than the written culture that produced it, it can tell you about animals, environment, diet, agriculture and changing patterns in the economy. As our guide reflected, "the skin has a memory.... you can read the whole life on its surface."

HM

Title image: The Parchment Maker by Jost Ammann, 1568. British Museum 1904, 0206.103.100 

Further reading:

•  Michael Ryder, "Parchment: its history, manufacture and composition", Journal of the Society of Archivists, Vol 2 (1964) https://doi.org/10.1080/00379816009513778