Parchment

People use animal skins to write on.

These skins come from sheep, goats, or calves. First, the skins soak in water. Then, they go into a bath to remove hair.

Next, the skins are stretched on a wooden frame. They dry while being pulled tight. This makes the skin smooth and strong.

Some people even color the skins. This makes the pages look very pretty. It is a very old way to make books.

Parchment is a material used for writing. It is made from animal skins. Most parchment comes from sheep, goats, or calves.

People have used it for over two thousand years.

Making parchment is a careful set of steps. First, the skin is soaked in water. This cleans away blood and dirt. Next, the skin goes into a bath. This bath uses lime to help remove the hair.

After that, the skin is placed on a wooden frame. This is called a stretching frame. The skin is pulled tight while it dries. This helps the fibers stay straight. It also makes the skin very strong.

Some makers add special treats to the skin. They might rub it with powder to make it smooth. They can even use pastes to make it white. Some makers even tint the skin different colors.

In the past, many important books were made on parchment. It was often better than papyrus. Later, paper became more common because it was cheaper. Today, parchment is still used for special things. It is used for some legal papers and religious items.

Parchment is a special material used for writing on. It is made from the skins of animals like sheep, goats, and calves.

People have used these skins as a writing surface for more than two thousand years. Some people call high-quality parchment vellum. Vellum is made from the skins of very young animals, like lambs. Libraries and museums often use the name animal membrane to describe these skins. This helps them avoid picking between the words parchment or vellum.

Making parchment is a long thing that happens in many steps. First, the skin is soaked in water for about a day. This removes blood and dirt from the skin. Next, the skin goes into a bath with lime. This lime bath helps remove the hair from the skin.

Workers stir the skins in large vats with long wooden poles. After the bath, the skin is placed on a wooden stretching frame. The skin is pulled tight while it dries. This process makes the fibers lay flat and straight. The skin even forms a natural glue as it dries.

Workers often add extra treatments to make the skin look better. They might rub pumice powder into the skin to make it smooth. This helps the ink sink in deeply. They can also use pastes made of flour, egg whites, or milk. These pastes make the parchment white and smooth. Some makers even tint the skin with colors like purple, red, or green.

In the past, some very fancy books were made on purple vellum. This was done to copy beautiful styles from the Byzantine Empire.

The history of parchment goes back a very long time. The word comes from a city called Pergamon. This city was a huge center for making parchment. Some old stories say it was invented to replace papyrus. However, most historians believe parchment was used in other places much earlier. For example, the writer Herodotus mentioned writing on skins in the 5th century BC. Ancient Egyptians also used leather for documents as far back as the Fourth Dynasty. This was around 2550 BC to 2450 BC.

Today, parchment is still used for very important things. It is used for some legal documents and religious items. In the United Kingdom, Acts of Parliament were printed on vellum until 2015. Traditional Jewish communities still use parchment for Torah scrolls.

This is a very old tradition that has stayed the same for a long time. Artists have also started using parchment again since the late 20th century. They like how the skin reacts to paint. When water touches the skin, the collagen melts slightly. This creates a raised bed that holds the paint beautifully.

Parchment is a durable writing material made from specially prepared animal skins. It is primarily created from the skins of sheep, goats, or calves. For over two thousand years, people in Europe and West Asia have used it to preserve important texts. While the term is often used broadly today for any dried animal skin, it originally referred specifically to sheep or goat skin.

Libraries and museums sometimes use the neutral term "animal membrane" to avoid the technical differences between types of skin.

One specific type of high-quality parchment is called vellum. Vellum is made from the skins of very young animals, such as lambs or young calves. Historically, the finest material was known as uterine vellum. Some people once believed this came from fetal calves, but modern research into 13th-century Bibles suggests otherwise. Scientists now hypothesize that the superior quality resulted from a lost technical process rather than the age of the animal.

Because it is difficult to identify the exact species or age of a skin without scientific analysis, the boundaries between parchment and vellum often blur.

The manufacturing process is a precise sequence of chemical and physical steps. It begins with the pelt, which is wet, unhaired, and limed skin. First, the skin is soaked in water for about one day to remove blood and grime. Next, it enters a dehairing liquor bath containing lime. Workers stir the skins in wooden or stone vats using long poles to ensure the solution penetrates deeply. This bath can last eight days or more, especially in winter. If the skin stays in the lime too long, it becomes too weak to survive the next stage.

After soaking, the skins are moved to a stretching frame. Workers attach the skins to this frame, sometimes using small, smooth rocks wrapped in rope to create tension. While the skin is stretched, a craftsman uses a sharp, semi-lunar knife to scrape away remaining hair. This scraping ensures the skin reaches the correct thickness. Because parchment consists mostly of collagen, it forms a natural glue as it dries. This stretching process aligns the fibers so they are nearly parallel to the surface.

Craftsmen often applied special treatments to make the surface better for writing. They might rub pumice powder into the flesh side to make it smooth. This allows ink to penetrate more deeply. To remove grease, they used powders or pastes made of calcium compounds. Other makers used pastes of flour, egg whites, milk, and lime to make the parchment white. Some even tinted the skins with colors like purple, indigo, green, or red.

In the early Middle Ages, some luxury manuscripts were even produced on purple vellum to imitate Byzantine styles.

The history of parchment is tied to the ancient city of Pergamon. During the Hellenistic period, this city was a major center for parchment production. A legend from Pliny the Elder suggests parchment was invented there to replace papyrus. However, historians believe parchment was used much earlier. Herodotus noted that the Ionians used skins for books in the 5th century BC. Ancient Egyptian documents using leather date back as far as the Fourth Dynasty, around 2550 BC.

By the 4th century AD, parchment became the standard for important books in many cultures. However, the 15th century brought a major change with the rise of paper. Paper was made from textile rags and was much cheaper to produce. When printing arrived in the late 15th century, the demand for animal skins grew too large for the supply to meet. During this transition, vellum remained a luxury option. For example, while most Gutenberg Bibles are on paper, 12 of the 48 surviving copies are on parchment.

Parchment remains significant in several modern and religious contexts. In Jewish tradition, parchment is the only medium allowed for writing Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzahs. This includes specific types of parchment like gevil and klaf.

In the United Kingdom, Acts of Parliament were printed on vellum until 2015. Artists have also seen a revival of interest in parchment since the late 20th century. They value how the collagen reacts to water in paint, which creates a raised bed for the colors. Because parchment reacts strongly to humidity, historical books were often bound with heavy wooden boards and metal clasps to keep the pages flat.