Parchment in Europe (Ancient Greece)

 -Now, we move to Ancient Greece, the founder of many theories and ideas used in Western Civilizations now. But, did you know they also had a hand in the development of a modern writing surface in Europe?

2.   Parchment – Ancient Greece, invented around 200BC: Parchment can be thought of as a “next step” towards Europe’s progression into a more refined writing surface, and it consists of treated animal skin (suspending animal skin, soaking it in lime, stretching it on a frame and shaving it) being used to create pages of books and other places to write on. Initially, parchment was extremely expensive, even more so than papyrus, so for its first few centuries of history, it was seldom used by the average person. However, as time went on, demand grew as the product became cheaper, but of poorer quality. Eventually, at around 1200CE, Parchment was at its peak usage, until paper came to Europe. (Editors of Britannica) Despite the fact that parchment stands the test of time better than papyrus in terms of durability, there are some common occurrences in sheets made from parchment that make the book quality weaker. These include; page size/shape warping, hair follicles, and holes and tears from the book maker’s attempts at removing these imperfections. (Kwakkel)

Legacy: While Parchment may not have been the best final product Europe has seen, it had served, much like the papyrus discovery, as a good substitute during the times that the region still hadn’t found out about papermaking. It also solidified further some hierarchies Europe had at the time, the Church being a notable one, as only the very rich could afford a book that had all perfect brilliant white sheets of parchment without any imperfections. 

Hair follicles can be seen in this close-up photo of a poorer-quality sheet of Parchment. These kinds of imperfections were not uncommon as the quality of the average sheet of parchment continued to drop.