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Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 most literature in these regions that was intended for preservation began to be transferred from papyrus to parchment. Vellum is a finer-quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves. The generic term animal membrane is sometimes used by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum.
Some authorities have sought to observe these distinctions strictly: for example lexicographer Samuel Johnson in 1755 and master calligrapher Edward Johnston in 1906. However when old books and documents are encountered it may be difficult, without scientific analysis, to determine the precise animal origin of a skin, either in terms of its species or in terms of the animal's age. In practice therefore there has long been considerable blurring of the boundaries between the different terms. In 1519 William Horman wrote in his Vulgaria: "That that we upon, and is made of , is called , , , ."William Horman, Vulgaria (1519), fol. 80v; cited in In Shakespeare's Hamlet (written 1599–1602) the following exchange occurs:
Lee Ustick, writing in 1936, commented:
It is for these reasons that many modern conservators, and prefer to use either the broader term parchment or the neutral term animal membrane.
Herodotus mentions writing on skins as common in his time, the 5th century BC; and in his Histories (v.58) he states that the Ionians of Asia Minor had been accustomed to give the name of skins (diphtherai) to books; this word was adapted by Hellenized Jews to describe scrolls. Writing on prepared animal skins had a long history in other cultures outside of the Greeks as well. David Diringer noted that "the first mention of Egyptian documents written on leather goes back to the Fourth Dynasty (c. 2550–2450 BC), but the earliest of such documents extant are: a fragmentary roll of leather of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 24th century BC), unrolled by Dr. H. Ibscher, and preserved in the Cairo Museum; a roll of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1990–1777 BC) now in Berlin; the mathematical text now in the British Museum (MS. 10250); and a document of the reign of Ramses II (early thirteenth century BC)."David Diringer, The Book before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental, Dover Publications, New York 1982, p. 172. Civilizations such as the and the Babylonians most commonly impressed their cuneiform on clay tablets, but they also wrote on parchment from the 6th century BC onward.
By the fourth century AD, in cultures that traditionally used papyrus for writing, parchment began to become the new standard for use in manufacturing important books, and most works which wished to be preserved were eventually moved from papyrus to parchment.
In the later Middle Ages, especially the 15th century, parchment was largely replaced by paper for most uses except luxury manuscripts, some of which were also on paper. New techniques in paper milling allowed it to be much cheaper than parchment; it was made of textile rags and of very high quality. Following the arrival of printing in the later fifteenth century AD, the supply of animal skins for parchment could not keep up with the demands of printers.
There was a short period during the introduction of printing where parchment and paper were used at the same time, with parchment (in fact vellum) the more expensive luxury option, preferred by rich and conservative customers. Although most copies of the Gutenberg Bible are on paper, some were printed on parchment; 12 of the 48 surviving copies, with most incomplete. In 1490, Johannes Trithemius preferred the older methods, because "handwriting placed on parchment will be able to endure a thousand years. But how long will printing last, which is dependent on paper? For if ... it lasts for two hundred years that is a long time."Quoted in David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript, and the Search for Order Cambridge University Press, 2003 In fact, high-quality paper from this period has survived 500 years or more very well, if kept in reasonable library conditions.
The heyday of parchment use was during the medieval period, but there has been a growing revival of its use among artists since the late 20th century. Although parchment never stopped being used (primarily for governmental documents and diplomas) it had ceased to be a primary choice for artists' supports by the end of the 15th century Renaissance. This was partly due to its expense and partly due to its unusual working properties. Parchment consists mostly of collagen. When the water in paint media touches the parchment's surface, the collagen melts slightly, forming a raised bed for the paint, a quality highly prized by some artists. Parchment is also extremely affected by its environment and changes in humidity, which can cause buckling. Books with parchment pages were bound with strong wooden boards and clamped tightly shut by metal (often brass) clasps or leather straps; this acted to keep the pages pressed flat despite humidity changes. Such metal fittings continued to be found on books as decorative features even after the use of paper made them unnecessary.
Some contemporary artists prize the changeability of parchment, noting that the material seems alive and like an active participant in making artwork. To support the needs of the revival of use by artists, a revival in the art of preparing individual skins is also underway. Hand-prepared skins are usually preferred by artists because they are more uniform in surface and have fewer oily spots – which can cause long-term cracking of paint – than mass-produced parchment, which is usually made for lamp shades, furniture, or other interior design purposes.
Meliora di Curci in her paper, "The History and Technology of Parchment Making", notes that parchment was not always white. "Cennino Cennini, a 15th-century craftsman provides recipes to tint parchment a variety of colours including purple, indigo, green, red and peach." The Early medieval Codex Argenteus and Codex Vercellensis, the Stockholm Codex Aureus and the Codex Brixianus give a range of luxuriously produced manuscripts all on purple vellum, in imitation of Byzantine examples, like the Rossano Gospels, Sinope Gospels and the Vienna Genesis, which at least at one time are believed to have been reserved for Imperial commissions.
Many techniques for parchment repair exist, to restore creased, torn, or incomplete parchments.
Parchment is still the only medium used by traditional religious Jews for Sefer Torah or tefilin and , and is produced by large companies in Israel. This usage is Sinaitic in origin, with special designations for different types of parchment such as gevil and klaf. For those uses, only hides of kosher animals are permitted. Since there are many requirements for it being fit for the religious use, the liming is usually processed under supervision of a qualified Rabbi.
Other processes can be used to obtain grease-resistant paper, such as waxing the paper or using fluorine-based chemicals. Highly beating the fibers gives an even more translucent paper with the same grease resistance. Silicone and other coatings may also be applied to the parchment. A silicone-coating treatment produces a cross-linked material with high density, stability and heat resistance and low surface tension which imparts good anti-stick or release properties. Chromium salts can also be used to impart moderate anti-stick properties.
Although the invention of the printing press led to a reduced interest in hand made cards and items, by the eighteenth century, people were regaining interest in detailed handwork. Parchment cards became larger in size and crafters began adding wavy borders and perforations. In the nineteenth century, influenced by French romanticism, parchment crafters began adding floral themes and cherubs and hand embossing.
Parchment craft today involves various techniques, including tracing a pattern with white or colored ink, embossing to create a raised effect, stippling, perforating, coloring and cutting. Parchment craft appears in hand made cards, as Scrapbooking embellishments, as bookmarks, lampshades, decorative small boxes, wall hangings and more.
An article published in 2009 considered the possibilities of tracing the origin of medieval parchment manuscripts and codices through DNA analysis. The methodology would employ polymerase chain reaction to replicate a small DNA sample to a size sufficiently large for testing. The article discusses the use of DNA testing to estimate the age of the calf at the creation of the vellum parchment. A 2006 study revealed the genetic signature of several Greek manuscripts to have "goat-related sequences". Utilizing these techniques we may be able to determine whether related library materials were made from genetically related animals (perhaps from the same herd) and locate the vellum's origination.
In 2020, it was reported that the species of several of the animals used to provide parchment for the Dead Sea Scrolls could be identified, and the relationship between skins obtained from the same animal inferred. The breakthrough was made possible by the use of whole genome sequencing.
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