A biocodicological analysis of the medieval library and archive from Orval Abbey, Belgium

Abstract

Biocodicological analysis of parchments from manuscript books and archives offers unprecedented insight into the materiality of medieval literacy. Using ZooMS for animal species identification, we explored almost the entire library and all the preserved single leaf charters of a single medieval Cistercian monastery (Orval Abbey, Belgium). Systematic non-invasive sampling of parchment collagen was performed on every charter and on the first bifolium from every quire of the 118 codicological units composing the books (1490 samples in total). Within the genuine production of the Orval scriptorium (26 units), a balanced use of calfskin (47.1%) and sheepskin (48.5%) was observed, whereas calfskin was less frequent (24.3%) in externally produced units acquired by the monastery (92 units). Calfskin was preferably used for higher quality manuscripts while sheepskin tends to be the standard choice for ‘ordinary’ manuscript book production. This finding is consistent with thirteenth-century parchment accounts from Beaulieu Abbey (England) where calfskin supply was more limited and its price higher. Our study reveals that the making of archival documents does not follow the same pattern as the production of library books. Although the five earliest preserved charters are made of calfskin, from the 1230s onwards, all charters from Orval are written on sheepskin.

Parchment Glutamine Index (PQI): A novel method to estimate glutamine deamidation levels in parchment collagen obtained from low-quality MALDI-TOF data

“…b) Comparison of PQI against different typology the parchments were used for. Biblical manuscripts were written on calfskin, having the highest PQI, which is in accordance with the findings in (Ruffini-Ronzani et al, 2021). Sheepskin was commonly used to produce grammar and theology texts with an intermediate deamidation index.…”

“…In order to establish the model, we used available published ZooMS [Buckley et al, 2009] data to establish correlations between the rates of deamidation of different tryptic peptides. We then test our model using data generated from almost the entire library of the Cisterian monastery at Orval Abbey, Belgium [Ruffini-Ronzani et al, 2021]. Explanation of the data generated can be found in the data article [Bethencourt et al, 2022] and the ZooMS data is uploaded in Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5648106).…”

“…We then test our model using data generated from almost the entire library of the Cisterian monastery at Orval Abbey, Belgium [Ruffini-Ronzani et al, 2021]. Explanation of the data generated can be found in the data article [Bethencourt et al, 2022] and the ZooMS data is uploaded in Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5648106).…”

“…which we have then applied to a newly released data set from Orval Abbey [Ruffini-Ronzani et al, 2021].…”

Data From “A Biocodicological Analysis of the Medieval Library and Archive From Orval Abbey, Belgium”

“…This large dataset allowed us to explore differences in the selection of animal skins in and outside the Orval scriptorium and the possible reasons behind the choice of sheep/goat or calf skin in the production [10].…”