11 - Bookbindings

Summary

Among the tenth-century notes added to the end of the Lindisfarne Gospels is one concerning the production of the manuscript:

Eadfrith … originally wrote this book … And Æthilwald … impressed it on the outside and covered it … And Billfrith … forged the ornaments which are on it on the outside and adorned it with gold and with gems and also with gilded-over silver – pure metal.

Whatever the status of this text, the inclusion of the names of a binder and a goldsmith is very unusual among pre-Conquest records of book production. A binder would have covered the ‘outside’ of a manuscript – the Lindisfarne text does not specify with what, and the meaning of ‘impressing’ the cover is uncertain – and a goldsmith would have decorated it. However, a binder would usually do more than merely covering the outside, although his other work is mostly invisible when completed. There are four main operations in binding a manuscript: first, sewing the quires together; second, attaching the boards (which may or may not have been made by the binder); third, covering the boards; and, last, decorating the covers. Æthilwald was only attributed the third of these operations in the Lindisfarne text, and Billfrith was credited with the fourth.