Dyeing Parchment:

My thoughts on colored parchment manuscripts:

I have a unique combination of medieval skills. I am both an experienced natural dyer, a qualified beginner parchment maker, and a pigment maker. These combined skills give me informed ideas about how medieval, colored manuscripts were made. There are no extant sources explaining how hides that were turned into the finest vellum were then colored deep purples and blues, sunny yellows, and orangey reds. There are period recipes for adding a colored ground to parchment for an artist to then paint on. I have found that this process coats the exterior of the parchment, thickening the folio and changing the surface of the parchment. What is good for the artist is not necessarily what is good for the scribe. Going against popular academic thinking, I do not agree that the painted-on-color process would have been used for the finest quality manuscripts of the time.

Hypothesis:

Based on the coloring of extant manuscripts such as the purple codices and the Blue Qur'an, and what is known about the dyestuffs used (lichen or folium for purple and indigo for blue), it is possible that the colored parchment was dyed in a cold dyebath instead of what is currently thought: that the dye was painted onto the parchment.

The consensus by the leading researchers of colored manuscripts is that the colors were painted on with a brush after the parchment was made. I have discussed this process with a conservator at Yale who has made a travelling educational scriptorium. Her samples of colored parchment for scriptorium were painted on, but onto very small pieces of parchment, about an inch each. She is just following what leading expert, Cheryl Porter, says was done medievally. I have doubts about Porter's conclusions. In one lecture, as proof for her painted-on-color theory, she states that you categorically cannot re-wet parchment once it is made because it will ruin the structure of the hide. This is NOT TRUE. One of the things you do to finish parchment is to re-wet it, re-stretch it, re-smooth it. There is at least one medieval recipe in the Bolognese Manuscript (see my faux stained glass project) that instructs you to wet a piece of already-made parchment, nail it to a flat surface, and let it dry again. Cennini says, "To draw on parchment, you must first soak it in spring or well water till it become soft. Fasten it tight with small nails over a plank, as you would stretch the parchment over a drum, and tint it as before directed." Knowing, by practical experience and by Cennini and other medieval sources, that one is able to re-wet parchment opens up the possibility of submersing parchment in a dyebath. I have tried this and have had great success. I know of no modern academic research being done with large, manuscript-sized parchment coloring it by methods available medievally.

Dye baths vs. thickened dye vs. paint:

I have tried a few different period recipes–one from Cennini (indigo paint made with hide glue, lead white, and indigo pigment) and a couple from the Booke of Secrets (thickened Brazilwood dye recipes using gum arabic)–for painting color onto parchment. I have also tried my own experimental parchment dyeing methods using what I know about making parchment, natural dyeing, and organic pigment making. I need to study colored manuscripts up close to give more support to my theory, but from the folios I have seen at the Met, I think I am on a path worth researching further.

Paint-on-color Experiment #1: 8 January 2020, Indigo tint on parchment. Recipe from Cennini's "Il libro dell' arte," 1390s.

From Cennini: "How You Should Tint Paper With an Indigo Tint. The indigo tint. Take the number of sheets mentioned above; take half an ounce of white lead, and the size of two beans of Bagdad indigo; and grind them together thoroughly, for thorough grinding will not spoil the tint. Temper it with your tempera as described above.”

My recipe interpretation: Take ½ ounce white lead, two teaspoons of indigo, one teaspoon of bone dust, and grind/mull together. I add a little water as a safety precaution when working with powdered lead. Add hide skin glue to get the right consistency for smooth application with a half dry brush. Apply in layers, drying completely between each coat. Takes about 3-5 coats to get good coverage. Can be burnished under another piece of parchment with smooth rock. Use a pen knife to scrape away any imperfections raised by the pigments. *The bone dust is not listed in each individual recipe, but is an implied ingredient as part of the tempering process.

Paint-on-color Experiment #2 & #3: 2 January 2021, Thickened Brazilwood dye applied with a brush. Recipes from: "A Booke of Secrets, Shewing Divers Waies to Make and Prepare All Sorts of Inke, and Colours, London: Adam Islip, 1596

Recipe #1: “To make coloured inks Of red colour, and first of Brasill. You must take care when you seeth Brasill, that you do it when the element is clear, without clouds, raine, or wind, otherwise it will not be good, you must make it thus: Take quicklime, poure raine water upon it, let it stand all night, in the morning poure the water softly from the lime, or straine it through a cloath, and for a quart of water, take an ounce of Brasill, let it seeth till it be halfe consumed, then put into it one ounce of beaten alum, one ounce of gum Arabike, two ounces of gum of a Cheritree, or else two ounces of cleane glue, straine it from the wood: you may likewise put into it some chalke beaten to pouder.”

My recipe #1 interpretation: Pour water over lime, let it sit overnight. Pour the water off the lime or strain through cloth. For a quart of lime water use one ounce of brazilwood. Simmer until half the volume. Add either: one ounce of alum, one ounce of gum arabic, two ounces of gum of cherry tree, or two ounces of clean glue. Strain. You may add chalk.

Recipe #2: “To seeth Brasill another way. To an ounce of Brasill, take the third part of a quart of beere, wine, or vineger, put it in a new pot, let it stand a night, in the morning set it on the fire and let it seeth till it be halfe consumed, then for every ounce of Brasill, take two pennyworth of alum, beaten to pouder, and as much beaten gum Arabike, stir them wel together, and let them seeth againe but if you desire to have it somewhat darke, then scrape a little chalke into it: when it seeteth, let it not seeth over the pot, and being cold, strain it through a cloath, and put it into a glasse well stopped.”

My recipe #2 interpretation: Add one ounce of Brazilwood to one and a third cup of beer, wine, or vinegar. Let sit overnight. Cook until reduced by half. Stir in equal parts of alum and gum arabic (not sure of what a pennyworth amount is, but I can base my guess on experience from making lakes.). Simmer again if you want it dark, then add a little chalk. Simmer, but watch out that it doesn’t boil over. When cold strain through a cloth and put it into a jar with a lid. (Not sure if they are saving the liquid or the stuff in the cloth. Since they don’t mention straining out the brazilwood earlier, I’m assuming they are saving the liquid.

Parchment Dye Experiment #1: 08 April 2019, Teloschistes spp. lichen dye, cold bath, [Note: this is a rare lichen that should never be harvested. I could only ethically harvest Teloschistes because I found an huge oak tree that had fallen during a windstorm. Lichen are so sensitive to the environment that they will not survive after their substrate changes, even with something as simple as its tree falling over. ]

The purple-giving lichen dyes are extracted with an ammonia method. For this experiment I added different quantities of distilled water to dilute the ammonia extraction. I also shifted the pH for some samples with vinegar and baking soda. Adding water resulted in loss of color. Some parchment pieces were in jars for one day, some up to three days. Some samples were dried in the sun, others in the dark. The range of colors was not what I was expecting. I got navy blue, gray, and orange, whereas this lichen is known to give light blues, pinks, and purples on wool, depending on sun exposure while drying. In this experiment sun exposure didn't make much difference.

Parchment Dye Experiment #2: 22 April 2019, Teloschistes spp. [Note: this is a rare lichen that should not be harvested (see above)]. Same dyebath as used above, but with changes made based on previous experiment. Notes from journal: "Using what I learned from the other dye experiment w/Teloschistes I didn't add any dilutant to the dyebath. I also didn't shift the pH. Put a 10x14-inch piece of hide #2 (Soay ram) in jar with dye extaction. The color results were much different than experiment #1, also more like what I expect from this kind of lichen. I didn't keep notes on if I dried it in the garage (dark) or kitchen (no direct sun), but I suspect garage."

Parchment Dye Experiment #3: 15 April 2019, Substantive natural dyes (henna, osage orange, buckthorn, safflower), plus madder. Substantive dyes don't require a mordant, so I figured they would be more likely to work with the parchment, which was not mordanted. I have not tried a cold mordanting process with parchment and don't feel the need to. I tried madder just for fun even though it's not categorized as substantive, with excellent results. From my journal: "Colors turned out beautiful and saturated. Favorites are osage and madder. Parchment dyes darker on side facing down. Not sure if that's because it's flesh vs grain, or because of the exposure to air and light? Touching the acid free paper? Some paper adhered to the bottom side. Parchment shrank some and I'd like to try dyeing while stretched on the herse."

Parchment Dye Experiment #4: 16 April 2021, Henna pH

Parchment Dye Experiment #5: 23 April 2019, Indigo Henna Vat. From my journal: "Dyed a 10x14-inch piece of parchment in a nice henna indigo vat. Three ten-minute dips, rinsing between. Bottom facing side dried with blotchiness. Upside is wonderful."

Parchment Dye Experiment #6: 18 August 2019, Colors from the garden. From my journal: "Cosmos marigold, Dyer's Chamomile, and Scabiosa. Parchment and paper dyed specifically for me to make little books to highlight natural dye colors from the garden."

My Conclusion: My indigo dyed parchment (right) looks more like the extant blue parchment (left) than my painted blue parchment (center).

The Blue Qur'an folio (left), from the second half 9th-mid-10-th century, is on display at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. I have seen it recently and to my eye it looks like it was dyed and not brushed. It definitly looks nothing like the indigo "tint" I made with the Cennini recipe and painted onto my parchement (center). My indigo-dyed parchment (right) looks a lot like the Blue Qur'an. The photo on the right shows both the front and the back of my dyed parchment. There is always variation in color on the different sides of the parchment whether it is dyed, or not.

My conclusion–based on seeing the period indigo parchment (left) and comparing it with the painted indigo parchment (center) I made and the dyed indigo parchment I made (right)–is that the Blue Qur'an was dyed in a dye bath, not by brushing on color.

My next experiment will be to try to paint with indigo dye, which I know from extensive experience with indigo dyeing won't be easy, and may not work at all. Indigo is a vat dye and not something that can be concentrated. Indigo and lichen dye are both vat dyes and different than all other natural dyes in how they work. The indigo process requires soaking and exposing to air for the dye to physically bond to the substrate. Multiple dips and air exposures are needs for the darker blues.