Byzantine Binding, Backstory

Long ago, in a different country - the South - I made a Byzantine-style book for a class. It was amazing. I gave the book away, which I only sort of regret. Well, no, let me rephrase. I gave it to someone who totally deserved it, and who is as likely as anyone to have used it (not that I'm going to ask), but it was my only one. I meant to make another, which is why I bought a spare set of boards. It's not having made the second book that I regret.

There I am, in the mists of the past, with three sets of cedar boards. I prepped text blocks for two of them, and then for three years they languished under piles of other projects. Languished, I tell you! It was awful. It still is, for the one with no text block. (If I am going to keep playing at being a book-binder, I am going to need a damn board shear. Or something.) A few weeks ago (it's amazing how fast these things can come together, isn't it?) I was poking around the internet and found pictures of Byzantine-style bindings that revealed some parts of the structure I'd failed to take notes on.

I am a terrible note-taker, especially when I'm making something. And by the time I took that class, I think some part of me had already decided that I was done with the formal process of institutionalized education. Or maybe I'm making excuses for slacking off - either way, the results are the same.

But the internet provides, and a little searching turned up two titles with some potentially useful information. Which meant I had to get a library card. And then, because one of the books I wanted was only available for in-library use, a second library card. At least it got me out of the bookstore. (I did, I admit, do a little investigation on what it would cost to buy the books, but they're both out of print and prohibitively expensive.) Well, I went to the library, where I had a delightful interaction with a charming, crabby, bored gentleman who gave me a soothing blue library card. And then I requested the books, but it turned out that they were in an annex somewhere.

So I waited a week, and went back. They'd only found one of them, and it was the one I'd actually used for some other research. I took copious notes anyway, because one never knows when one is going to want to work a double-beaded French silk endband. (The book is Headbands and How to Work Them, and if you're a binder interested in finicky sewing and fancy finishing, it is invaluable. I recommend seeking it out at a library and bringing a sharp pencil. I ended up copying all the diagrams by hand because the library's rebinding was so brutally tight. Like they thought the pages might try to escape if they didn't lace them up in a cloth and board corset.)

The next step is, I think, to try yet another library: this one an academic library, which claims to have a copy of the more scholarly of my two titles. (A work called The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, by J A Szirmai, which I don't think I've ever seen. The book my binding instructor used for diagrams and photos of how Byzantine codices were made was in French, and I (of course) didn't write down the title or author or in fact any useful identifying information at all.)

The point is sort of moot, though. I've reconstructed enough of the process from my previous experience that I've managed to make a fairly good practice binding. It's not perfect, of course, but it it at least functional enough to work as a book. I need to recover some of my proficiency with sewn headbands, and I need to work on my sewing tension in general. I've also got to look more closely at how the corners are supposed to work. It's been a long time since I did any work in leather, and I wasn't all that good at it to begin with. Leatherwork requires a great deal of practice, and a careful hand. I'll get it eventually, if I keep at it, and learn to keep my blades properly sharpened.

I'm taking a break between bindings, though, to try for some paper. I recently got a mold & deckle, and it's high time I use up some of my stash of pulp balls. If it works, I can always make more. There are definitely people around who have beaters.

Next up: I'll show off some pictures of the practice Byzantine, and talk about process. Which is always entertaining.