Ink Formulations And Writing Tools From The Past

[Witsius]

This is a video on New Testament scribal methods, but it makes some mention about the inks and writing tools scribes used throughout the centuries. Interesting stuff even if New Testament textual criticism isn't your cup of tea.

 

https://youtu.be/vm1BMVhVrH4

Edited November 19, 2016 by Witsius

[Bo Bo Olson]

A very good video covering different writing materials and 'pens'.

 

Before I started back scribbling with a fountain pen and seeing here what can be done, I ignored all the parchment manuscripts I saw in museums.

 

Over the last 5 or so years, there have been exhibitions of German Emperors or early Grand Dukes/princes. I don't have the knowledge....in I'm really too lazy to start doing calligraphy, much less even looking at old styles so I could at least recognize them.

 

What I do recognize is the Emperor, King had the best Calligrapher in the land.....and there may have only been a hundred or 150 who could read or write, in the 9th century....the oldest works I've seen.

By the 10-11th

But the intelligent were filtered out of 3-7th son nobility and all of peasantry; so they didn't breed. Or cause trouble. Food...was there. Time was killed praying, thought was hindered.

In the hundreds of Church copiers....the best were filtered out. Masters of Calligraphy. There must have been tricks one used on parchment to get perfectly straight lines. No matter what hurry the Emperor/King was in....he had to wait for the perfect copy...to sign and stamp.

They were perfect.

Different scripts from different centuries. Perfect.

 

I can not read Latin.....but often I'll stare at different stamped parchments or parchment books, for 5-7 minutes before I go to the next. Once, I was blind.

 

Some one on this com, once showed what the worlds best calligrapher did in the 11-12-13th? century....with out a magnifying glass...that one needs now to read it......I think it was two by 3" or 2" by four"

[Sailor Kenshin]

This is AWESOME. Thanks!

[PS104]

An incredibly informative video

Thank you

[sidthecat]

I wish my husband could have seen this: he was deeply interested in the Gospels and the early Church.

 

I love the color of the those old, faded inks...I'm thinking Lie de The.

[inkstainedruth]

I have friends that are interested in medieval and Renaissance calligraphy. A couple of them once looked at a manuscript and tried to figure out the scribe's posture. They eventually decided that the person had been sitting sideways on a chair, with the non-pen arm slung behind over the back of the chair (effectively twisting the person so that the his back was sideways to both the back of the chair and the writing surface). Very odd....

Thanks for posting the link.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Orpilorp]

"... There must have been tricks one used on parchment to get perfectly straight lines."

In 'The Art of Written Forms' Donald Anderson writes on pg. 61, "To mark off space between lines the vellum leaf was pierced by an instrument known as the circinus in vertical order down the page. In this way the front and back sides of the leaf could be ruled for letters with the same visual cue. Lines and margins were ruled with a sharp (but not cutting) tool, which pressed a mark into the skin. These marks could be seen on the reverse side. Different habits of pricking and ruling manuscripts interest scholars in that they help to identify the locale of the writing and in some instances help in dating it, a very difficult subject."

 

 

 

Hope this helps to shed some light.

[sidthecat]

The scriptorium monks probably wrote standing - it was common practice until the 20th century. In the 1970s I saw Goethe's writing desk in Bonn: a standing desk, which I duplicated many years later when I got a job in animation. The desk I'm using all these years later is configured so I can stand at it. It's fashionable now: back then it was just another manifestation of my eccentricity.

[T4TEXAS]

Sid, love to see a pic of your desk.

[sidthecat]

It's an updated version of the classic Disney animation desk, a beautifully-designed Art Deco artifact. I've had opportunities to buy one, but it's big and heavy and screams "An animator lives here!"

 

I refuse to be defined by my desk.