HUMAN PARCHMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3434, 27 January 1912, Page 10

HUMAN PARCHMENT.

In the middle Ages the monks, who, indeedj were the chief consumers of writing materials, became noted for their skill in the production of fine, or as it was caflod, “virgin” parchment, the Abbey of Cluney in France being especially distinguished in the twelfth century. It was made of the skins of still-born kids and lambs. The whiter, smoother and more transparent parchment, known as vellum, was made from the skins of immature calves.

The cost of either of these materials for bookmaking or recording was a heavy and constantly increasing burden. As knowledge increased and the demand for books, records-, legal conveyances and personal business and pri_ vate correspondence increased, the supply of new parchment and vellum, failed" to increase in volume and to dimmish in price, and the classics of Greece and Rome and many an unique history, romance and, poem was ruthlessly expunged that the economical or pious copyist could secure a. cheap and wellfinished parchment. Even this did not satisfy the everincreasing need and demand for the literature and correspondence, and it was a tradition of the horror-stricken Scriptores of “Old' Gaul” that the Abbo Rivas, attracted by the extreme tenuity and smoothness of the leaves of a Bible of the thirteenth century, became convinced that the satiny skin of a beautiful woman had furnished the parchment maker with raw material for Iris unrivaled product. In another instance, one Gayer de Sansale. a famous Bibliothecaire of the College of the Sorbonne at Raris, declared that some one had dressed and finished 1 human skin to make the parchment used for certain Decretals.— Charles Winslow Hall in ( ‘Xational Magazine. ’•'