By Katrin on Dienstag, 13. Juni 2023
Category: work-related

Manuscript Curtains.

​Just in case you'd like to see some medieval textiles... there's a 9th century manuscript, written in Mainz and in the care of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek that has been digitised.

The really nice thing about it? (Well, apart from the fact that it's a really beautiful old book, with miniatures.) This book still has its curtains. That are pieces of fabric sewn to the pages to protect, or maybe hide, or maybe both, the illuminations - reminding me a bit of the spidery translucent paper that is used in photo albums. (Except in this MS, it looks to me like the fabric is not attached, but only placed between the pages. Hm.)

Anyways - this book still has its curtains (a lot of them were removed at some point from manuscripts, and have either gotten lost or are kept separately), and they were also digitised, and that means you can zoom in on beautiful medieval silk fabrics. 

Here, for example. There's a number of pages with curtains, and it all seems to be the same fabric. It looks like a selvedge at the top and the bottom, which would make it a relatively narrow strip of woven fabric, and there's hems with sometimes discernible stitches at the right and left side. 

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