Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared, untanned animal skin, most commonly that of sheep, goats, or calves. Its manufacture involves removing hair and flesh, scraping the skin, and drying it under tension to produce a thin sheet suitable for writing, painting, or bookbinding. It was a major support for manuscripts during the Middle Ages and remained important for formal documents after paper became widespread. Animal parchment is distinct from the plant-fibre papers sold under names such as “parchment paper” or “vellum paper.” (loc.gov)
Terminology and related materials
The words parchment and vellum overlap in historical and modern usage. In a narrower sense, vellum means parchment made from calfskin; in broader usage, it may refer to fine animal-skin parchment without specifying the animal. Libraries and conservators therefore do not always treat the two terms as distinct material categories. A description of an object as vellum does not, by itself, establish its species of origin. (blogs.cornell.edu)
Parchment differs from leather chiefly in its processing. Leather is tanned, whereas parchment is cleaned and dried under tension without tanning. It also differs from papyrus, which is made from strips of plant tissue, and from paper produced through papermaking, which forms sheets from dispersed fibres. These materials sometimes served the same purposes, but their manufacture and response to use and storage are different. (people.duke.edu)
Manufacture and physical characteristics
Traditional parchment-making is a skilled process whose details vary by period, region, and intended use. A typical sequence includes:
- Cleaning and liming. The skin is soaked in an alkaline lime solution to help loosen hair and unwanted tissue.
- Dehairing and fleshing. Hair and adhering flesh are scraped away, and the skin is washed.
- Tensioning and scraping. The wet skin is secured to a frame and worked with a curved knife. Scraping and adjustments to tension continue as it dries.
- Finishing. The surface may be worked with pumice or chalk to improve its smoothness and suitability for writing. (getty.edu)
The finished sheet consists principally of the skin’s dermal layer, rich in collagen, a structural protein. Drying under tension changes the arrangement of its fibres and helps produce the characteristic sheet-like writing surface. Parchment is thus not simply a thin piece of ordinary leather: its properties result from a different treatment of the skin’s structure. (specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk)
Because it is made from a biological material, parchment is not uniformly smooth or consistent in thickness. Marks, cuts, holes, and other irregularities may survive preparation. Existing cuts can open during tensioning; makers sometimes sewed them together, while scribes might write around unrepaired holes. Such features provide evidence of decisions made during production and use, rather than necessarily indicating later damage. (hab.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
Parchment can survive for many centuries, but durability does not mean dimensional stability. It is strongly hygroscopic: changes in moisture can cause expansion, contraction, curling, and uneven deformation. Its behaviour also varies with the animal skin, manufacturing method, and previous deterioration. (loc.gov)
Historical development
Ancient origins and the Pergamon tradition
The name parchment derives from Pergamon, an ancient city in Asia Minor. Pliny the Elder, citing Varro, related a story in which competition between royal libraries led an Egyptian ruler to restrict exports of papyrus, prompting the development of parchment at Pergamon in the second century BCE. This is an ancient origin story, not a secure account of the material’s invention. Writing on animal skins predates that period, and parchment documents from the fourth century BCE are known. The precise beginnings of parchment manufacture remain uncertain. (people.duke.edu)
Parchment became increasingly important in late antiquity alongside the spread of the codex, the book format consisting of leaves gathered and bound together. It could be folded into gatherings and written on both sides. However, material and format should not be equated: papyrus was also used for codices, and parchment could be assembled into rolls. The transition from papyrus rolls to parchment books was gradual, with different materials and formats coexisting. (penelope.uchicago.edu)
Medieval books and documents
Parchment was a major medieval writing support across Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. In Europe, it was central to the production of religious and secular books, including elaborately decorated illuminated manuscripts. Its use was not confined to books: deeds, legal records, and other important documents were also written on animal skin. (exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk)
Preparing a manuscript required several successive operations. Sheets were ruled to guide the writing; scribes applied text with ink; illuminators added painted decoration and sometimes gold or silver; and the leaves were folded, gathered, and sewn into a binding. Parchment therefore formed one component of a production system involving several materials and specialized crafts. (getty.edu)
Paper and printing
Parchment did not disappear when paper became common in Europe. The two materials overlapped, including in early printing: copies of the Gutenberg Bible were produced on both paper and vellum. Parchment also continued to serve as a covering material in bookbinding and as a support for formal records. Its history is therefore not a simple sequence in which one material immediately replaced another. (getty.edu)
Reuse and palimpsests
Parchment required substantial labour and animal resources, making reuse economically significant. Earlier writing could be scraped or washed away and the surface used for a new text. A manuscript retaining traces of an erased text beneath later writing is called a palimpsest. (bl.uk)
Erasure was not always complete. Underlying texts may remain visible or become recoverable through modern imaging, preserving evidence of works no longer available in their original manuscripts. A palimpsest consequently records both the earlier text and the later decision to repurpose its material support. The reasons for reuse varied, and cannot always be established from the surviving object alone. (bl.uk)
Conservation and scientific study
Parchment preservation is a branch of cultural heritage conservation in which the support, writing, decoration, and binding must be considered together. Humidity-driven movement can stress attachments or distort leaves; inks may lift or flake; and past mounting materials can contribute to damage. The conservation history of the United States Declaration of Independence illustrates how parchment movement, adhesives, and restrictive mounting can interact to cause tearing. (archives.gov)
Treatments must account for the condition of each object. Controlled humidification can sometimes relax distorted parchment, but moisture may also endanger degraded skin or its writing media. During the National Archives’ re-encasement of the founding documents, some parchment sheets were humidified and flattened, while the Declaration received less treatment because examination showed it to be especially vulnerable to moisture. (archives.gov)
Parchment also preserves biological evidence. Collagen analysis using mass spectrometry can identify the animal species used to make a sheet. One low-impact sampling method analyzes material collected in eraser waste from surface cleaning, rather than cutting a sample from the manuscript. Such work connects manuscript study with archaeology and the history of animal husbandry. (york.ac.uk)
Surviving DNA offers another source of information. Research has recovered genetic material from historical parchment and used it to investigate the animals from which the skins originated. The material support can therefore contribute evidence about livestock history independently of the document’s written content, although the results depend on preservation and sampling. (york.ac.uk)
Vegetable parchment and paper imitations
Vegetable parchment is a separate material made from plant fibres rather than animal skin. Chemical treatment of the fibre sheet produces a tough, often translucent paper with grease resistance and relatively high wet strength. Other papers imitate parchment’s appearance or are marketed as vellum. These names describe paper products, not the untanned animal-skin support used in historical manuscripts. (cameo.mfa.org)
References
- Parchment/Vellum: Cold Storageloc.gov
- Parchment-makingblogs.cornell.edu
- The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology: Writing Materials in the Ancient Worldpeople.duke.edu
- The Making of a Medieval Bookgetty.edu
- Beasts in the University Libraryspecialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk
- CodeXyork.ac.uk
- A conservation perspective on imperfect parchmenthab.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
- The Declaration of Independence and the Hand of Timearchives.gov
- Scroll and Codexpenelope.uchicago.edu
- Parchmentccdl.claremont.edu