The Making of a Medieval Manuscript

The Making of a Medieval Manuscript examines the labour, materials and specialist knowledge behind books produced by hand before the modern era. Manuscripts from Europe, Armenia and Ethiopia are shown alongside Jewish and Muslim material to illuminate the cultural breadth of pre-modern bookmaking.

The exhibition follows four principal stages: preparing animal skin to create parchment, writing the text, painting and decorating the pages, and finally sewing and binding the completed gatherings into a book. Tools and material samples help reveal the physical processes that often disappear behind the finished object.

By focusing on manufacture rather than solely on iconography, the exhibition draws attention to scribes, illuminators, parchment makers and binders as highly skilled makers. It also shows how many features of the modern book emerged from techniques developed more than a thousand years ago.