Manuscript Details

INCIPIT, EXPLICIT and COLOPHON

UCB 107 does not contain an incipit, explicit or colophon of note. The opening
line of the main text could serve as an inicipit, but this line is not distinguished or emphasized in any particular way. The explicit of the work follows tradition and is simply, explicitus, which is the Latin for “unrolled” and an abbreviation of the phrase, explicitus est liber or “the scroll is unrolled.” The absence of a colophon is not unusual as these only appeared irregularly in medieval manuscripts and were most often used by Italian humanists (Brown, 1994).

SIZE

The manuscript measures 11 5/8 X 8 inches or 298 x 203 mm. This is an appropriate size for personal use, portable and functional yet still of a size indicating luxury. Larger and more extensively decorated manuscripts would have been showpieces and works meant to be read aloud and looked at by multiple people at the same time.

COLLATION, FOLIATION and BINDING

Precise details of how this manuscript was collated and bound are unknown. The manuscript contains 380 leaves and is missing folia 2 and 22, but is otherwise complete according to medieval foliation. The manuscript contains foliation in Roman numerals in the manuscripts upper-right margin although this was probably added at a later date.

The quires or gatherings are of variable length and contain no catchwords, the words written at the end of a quire repeating the first word on the following page that aided the binding process (Brown, 1994). The manuscript is covered in red leather although it is unclear if this is an original covering.

RULING

The manuscript is laid out in two colums of 44-46 lines that are ruled in hard point and lead. This was a typical presentation for volumes in the Vulgate Cycle (Loomis, 1975; Morrison, 2010). Due to their great length, the manuscript was sometimes written in as many as three columns to save space.



MATERIAL WRITTEN ON

UCB 107 is written on vellum. It is interesting to note that scholars are unclear on the exact difference between parchment and vellum (Avrin 1991). Both involve the stretching, scraping and liming of animal skin into thin sheets suitable for writing upon. Many assume that the difference between the two is in vellum’s use of calf skin since vellum translates literally to “veal skin”. When examining medieval manuscripts though, it is nearly impossible to identify the kind of animal whose hide was used. Therefore, it is impossible to conclude that vellum is made exclusively from calf skin. Some scholars do use the age of the animal as a way to distinguish between parchment and vellum, with parchment coming from adult animals and vellum coming from young animals. Others propose that the difference lies in the method of preparation. They claim that vellum is not treated with salt like parchment, resulting in a softer texture. Still others claim that vellum, unlike parchment, does not show any hair holes. Whatever the differences in methods of preparation, the difference in the end results are clear: parchment is heavier and glossier while vellum is softer, more fine and was typically the more costly of the two.

UCB 107 Manuscript images courtesy of the Digital Scriptorium