Читать книгу Thomas Berthelet, Royal Printer and Bookbinder to Henry VIII., King of England онлайн

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The boards of these bindings, like those of the decorated kind, are of wood, sometimes thick, sometimes thin. The thick boards were made heavy, because many of the manuscripts were written on vellum, which is very curly, and the weight of the covers was useful in counteracting this defect. The thin boards were very carefully chosen, and must have been well seasoned, as they are very rarely indeed warped at all. In many instances stamps of the monasteries at which they were made are impressed on these boards, and this is a sign of the careful manner in which even the smallest details concerning books was superintended. Berthelet’s boards are always of cardboard or its equivalent, and although wooden boards are often found at a subsequent time to this, they may as a rule be considered to have gone out of universal use here about the end of the fifteenth century.

The reputed oldest specimen of all the English bookbindings is bound in red leather, possibly deerskin; it is known as “St. Cuthbert’s Gospels,” and was found, A. D. 1105, in the tomb of St. Cuthbert when it was opened. St. Cuthbert died A. D. 687, and the book is supposed to have been buried with him. It contains the Gospel of St. John, written on vellum, and is now treasured at Stonyhurst College. The volume is in such a remarkable state of preservation, both outside and inside, that a certain amount of discredit attaches to the legend of its great antiquity. It is bound in thin boards of limewood, covered with red leather, curiously worked and coloured. The upper cover bears a decorative rectangular panel, the central portion of which, nearly square, has a symmetrical foliated curve of double-S form, repoussé, and showing slight traces of colour; above and below this are two long panels in which are drawn free-hand scrolls of Anglo-Saxon character, deeply lined. These scrolls are painted blue and yellow. The under side is simply ornamented with fillets. The design of this binding is unquestionably very old, and may fittingly be referred to about the date of St. Cuthbert’s death. Mr. E. Gordon Duff, however, inclines to the view that it is not actually the original binding, but is a copy of about the twelfth or thirteenth century. Even if it were made at the latest date attributed to it, it is still the earliest existing English book bound in red leather, as well as the only one decorated in the true style of Anglo-Saxon art.