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Old 09-12-2010, 02:09 AM   #1
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Why are books the size they are?
Blame the sheep...
http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2010...e-penance.html
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Old 09-12-2010, 08:28 AM   #2
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Interesting, thanks for posting that Dennis
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Old 09-12-2010, 09:52 AM   #3
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I knew about the successive foldings to make in-quarto, in-octo and so on, but I never wondered who set the original size of the original sheet. Sheep, of course!
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Old 09-12-2010, 10:15 AM   #4
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... and everyone else followed along .
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Old 09-12-2010, 11:15 AM   #5
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Very interesting article!
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Old 09-12-2010, 12:38 PM   #6
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This also explains the fall of the Inca empire-- everyone went blind trying to read those guinea pig-based books.
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Old 09-12-2010, 12:46 PM   #7
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Thanks for that Dennis!
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Old 09-12-2010, 02:03 PM   #8
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Oh no! *That's* what parchment is??? Oh dear, and here I thought it was made from bark or something.

So every time they made a little book, they ate mutton stew for dinner?
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Old 09-12-2010, 04:14 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by GraceKrispy View Post
Oh no! *That's* what parchment is??? Oh dear, and here I thought it was made from bark or something.

So every time they made a little book, they ate mutton stew for dinner?
seriously? you didn't know?
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Old 09-12-2010, 05:29 PM   #10
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This also explains the fall of the Inca empire-- everyone went blind trying to read those guinea pig-based books.
Those were the first paperback-sized books!
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Old 09-12-2010, 05:31 PM   #11
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Seriously, kk... never gave a thought to it. Does that make me stupid?
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Old 09-12-2010, 06:02 PM   #12
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Interesting. I thought vellum came from animal skin.
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Old 09-12-2010, 06:13 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by GraceKrispy View Post
Seriously, kk... never gave a thought to it. Does that make me stupid?
no, I just thought it was common knowledge. then again I find that I have a lot of weird trivia boxed in my brain that I just supposed everyone knew.

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Interesting. I thought vellum came from animal skin.
it does. vellum is to parchment what expensive linen paper is to copy paper
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Old 09-12-2010, 11:24 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by GraceKrispy View Post
Oh no! *That's* what parchment is??? Oh dear, and here I thought it was made from bark or something.
You're conflating it with papyrus.

Quote:
So every time they made a little book, they ate mutton stew for dinner?
One presumes they used the rest of the sheep for something. But sheep are similar to pigs, where the saying is "You can use every part of the pig but the squeal". It's a fair bet that sheep whose skins became parchment had already had a productive life producing wool before becoming parchment.

The material is the reason why diplomas are called "sheepskins", as that was the traditional material they were inscribed on. For that matter, the traditional Torah scrolls encased in mezuzahs were parchment, and I've seen hairsplitting over whether a mezuzah containing a paper Torah scroll is proper. (It appears to be accepted among most Jews simply because proper parchment is expensive and harder to find.)
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Old 09-12-2010, 11:28 PM   #15
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Seriously, kk... never gave a thought to it. Does that make me stupid?
No, it means you didn't happen to know something, which is ignorance, not stupidity.

But no penalty. It's a relatively obscure bit of trivia most folks probably won't know, because they have no need to.
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