Course Description
Students will investigate the diversities of European bookbinding structures, up to and including the early period of more generalized practice and division of labor. Topics of the course include identification (where possible) of the main types of binding structures; dating and provenance; recognition and recording of materials and techniques. This course is aimed at librarians, archivists, art historians, and conservators specializing in early books and manuscripts, and others who handle such material. The course will emphasize studies of the physical book and binding craft techniques of the period. It will proceed by means of lecture and discussion, and employ a considerable number of slides, diagrams, and samples. The structurally diverse materials of the period will be explored by general descriptions and the use of certain carefully chosen case studies. The instructor will present for discussion his own methods concerning the interpretation and recording of such binding structures. In the face of the extensive losses now occurring to primary source material, problems of preservation and record photography will also be discussed. In their personal statement, applicants should indicate their background, special interests, and expectations from the course. The course presupposes a general knowledge of European history, but not of binding history.Faculty
Christopher Clarkson
Christopher Clarkson (d. 31 March 2017) held conservation positions at the Bodleian Library, the Walters Art Gallery, and the Library of Congress before establishing an independent bookbinding practice in Oxford. An internationally …
Advance Reading List
Required Reading
Clarkson, Christopher. “The Conservation of Early Books in Codex Form.” The Paper Conservator 3 (1978): 33–50. Photocopy sent with admission packet.
Clarkson, Christopher. “Rediscovering Parchment: The Nature of the Beast.” The Paper Conservator 16 (1992): 5–26. For information about back runs and individual issues of The Paper Conservator, contact Sally Esdaile of the Book and Paper Group of ICON, the Institute of Conservation. We have permission to photocopy no 1 from The Paper Conservator, above; but the many detailed halftone photographs in this one (no. 2) preclude its successful photocopying.
Franck, Peter. A Lost Link in the Technique of Bookbinding and How I Found It. Gaylordsville, CT: [privately printed] Printed at Hawthorne House, 1941. Photocopy sent with admission packet.
Duby, Georges. The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society 980–1420. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Shailor, Barbara A. The Medieval Book: Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. New Haven: Yale University Library, 1988; reprinted 1991 (Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, no. 28).
Miner, Dorothy. History of Bookbinding, 525–1950 AD. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1957.
Pye, David, and John Kelsey. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968; revised edition Bethel, CT: Cambium Press, 1995.
Read either of the following:
Huizinga, Johan. The Waning of the Middle Ages. London: E. Arnold & Co., 1924; frequently reprinted, and recently retranslated by Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch (in an expanded version more closely approaching the 1919 original) as The Autumn of the Middle Ages.
White, Lynn Townsend. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Many reprints.
Additional reading, to do if possible:
Gimpel, Jean. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.
Gies, Frances & Joseph. Cathedral, Forge, & Waterwheel. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Clanchy, M. T. From Memory to Written Record. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979; 2nd edition Oxford; B. H. Blackwell, 1993.
Course History
- 2003–2013
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course three times during this period, as “Medieval & Early Renaissance Bookbinding Structures.”
- 2001
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course, as “Medieval and Renaissance Bookbinding Structures.”
- 1995–1999
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course, as “Introduction to Medieval and Early Renaissance Bookbinding Structures.”
- 1994
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course, as “Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Bookbinding Structures.”
- 1987–1993
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course, as “Introduction to Medieval and Early Renaissance Bookbinding Structures.”
- 1986
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course, as “Medieval and Early Renaissance Bookbinding Structures.”
- 1985
Christopher Clarkson & Michael Gullick co-teach this course.
- 1984
Christopher Clarkson teaches this course, as “Medieval Bookbinding Structures.”