Project description
Studying old parchments to document evolution of livestock management
Parchments are made from animal skins, and when studied as a crafted biological material, they can potentially reveal the history of animal management. The EU-funded B2C project will document the biological and craft records contained in parchments to extend codicological studies. Using the rich zooarchaeological information stored in parchments, it will document the first stages in production: livestock farming and the preparation of skins. B2C will combine the craft skills read from parchments with chemical data and modern analogues to produce the first Europe-wide record of the craft dating 500–1900. The use of biocodicology will uncover information available to the scribe at the time of production, attitudes to parchment conservation, and high-resolution biological data on livestock management.
Objective
The intention of Beasts to Craft (B2C) is to document the biological and craft records in parchment in order to reveal the entangled histories of animal improvement and parchment production in Europe from 500-1900 AD.
B2C will lay the foundations for a new approach to the the study of parchment manuscripts —biocodicology— which draws evidence from the overlooked first stages in production, the raising of livestock and the preparation of the skins.
1. Parchment is an extraordinary but overlooked high resolution zooarchaeological record and a molecular archive. Livestock genetics is revealing breed diversity and markers of character traits such as fleece quality. B2C will exploit this new-found knowledge, using progressively older dated archival (sheep) parchments to study the history of improvement 1300 - 1900. Visual examination of the skins will search for direct evidence of disease and fleece quality.
2. Craft skills can be read from parchment and, when combined with chemical data and comparison with modern analogues, will produce the first European wide record of the craft from 500-1900. The size and scope of this the parchment archive means it is one of the largest and most highly resolved records of a specialist medieval craft. We will explore how these skills develop and when and where regional patterns appear and decline.
These two remarkable records requires a large interdisciplinary team. However biocodicology draws from and informs upon a wide and diverse spectrum of existing scholarship in conservation, the arts and sciences. A third strand of the project will (i) furnish manuscript scholars with some of the information available to the scribe at time of production (ii) inform and shape attitudes to parchment conservation (iii) provide high resolution biological data on animal management, movement and health and (iv) explore methods to link datasets and promote data reuse.
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Funding Scheme
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantHost institution
1165 Kobenhavn
Denmark