https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read daily 0.75 2025-09-09 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/the-making-of-medieval-ink monthly 0.5 2025-09-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/99bfec75-0825-4d08-9ead-a2a83e84a87d/Ink.png Blogs - Gall, gum, vitriol and the making of medieval black ink - See here, in a chapter of Material Studies of Historic Inks from Ira Rabin, a series of letters drawn in varying inks: Tannin, iron-gall, and carbon. On the left, we are treated to a manuscript imaged with visible light. On the right, we can ponder the same manuscript, imaged with near-infrared (NIR) light. From the top of the ladder down, these letters are written in tannin, iron-gall, and finally carbon ink. Relying on XRF, we can not only characterize ink itself, but also how it was wielded by its author. The medieval period, despite a contemporary tendency to characterize it as a backwards period of strife, bloodshed, and cultural ignorance, was rich in cultural exchange. The Silk Road provided ample opportunity for the exchange of techniques and materials. Just as trade exchanged goods, trade also shared the love of inkmaking from scribe to scribe. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/f5644626-626d-47cd-b512-23729b2bf380/Screenshot+2025-09-09+at+7.01.45%E2%80%AFPM.png Blogs - Gall, gum, vitriol and the making of medieval black ink - While a manuscript is produced by the human hand of its scribe, there is another parent to the manuscript: The buzzing of a stray insect and the plucking of a growth from a tree for its transubstantiation into a rich, dark ink. Imagine gripping in your hand the woody growth of the gall, admiring each imperfection across its rough, nutty surface. It is from this nut that, bruised as it is, vast annals of culture, both fact and fiction, would be recorded for your peers and those who will follow behind you. For any medieval scribe, the making of black ink was as important as its use. To understand their materials and the manuscripts to come from it, the artist relied on their surroundings, using local materials found in nature and the aid of trade and apothecaries to marry mineral and pigment into the tool by which they would illuminate. Black ink, as with much of medieval culture, adhered to a trinity: Gall, gum, and vitriol – or iron. The text from this 1270 manuscript remains legible. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/c1016f9b-aa16-414a-b127-e6a396b3b3f2/Gallnut.jpg Blogs - Gall, gum, vitriol and the making of medieval black ink - It is with the sunken stones of wasp eggs that we can still glean from centuries-dead authors their most private histories. To make it, scribes plucked from oak trees their beautiful freaks of nature, galls, and soaked them in water or wine, stirred over two weeks with iron sulfate to form a rich black with which they would bleed into parchment. The addition of gum binded the pigment, letting the ink flow like a rich, dark wine and adhere to parchment. https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/marching-monsters-and-the-many-faces-of-medieval-grotesques monthly 0.5 2025-09-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/45b9732b-4cd7-42e3-91c8-e84fa81ad2ba/God+with+adam+and+eve.jpg Blogs - Marching monsters and the many faces of medieval grotesques - Make it stand out God with Adam and Eve The First Rain in Paradise, around 1200 - 1254 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/635cfccd-274b-45b9-b78d-c33d8bceca68/manticore-11599.jpg Blogs - Marching monsters and the many faces of medieval grotesques - An illustration of a manticore, a creature with the body of a lion, the head of a man and the tail of a scorpion, from a 13th-century English bestiary. An illustration of a manticore, a creature with the body of a lion, the head of a man and the tail of a scorpion, from a 13th-century English bestiary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/d14dfcb0-3609-4559-8d2d-db0fc49b3916/512px-Harrowing_of_Hell_-_Winchester_Psalter_%2812th_C%29%2C_f.39_-_BL_Cotton_MS_Nero_C_IV.jpg Blogs - Marching monsters and the many faces of medieval grotesques This 12th-century illustration from the St. Swithun Psalter/Winchester Psalter depicts the jaws of Hell, also known as a “Hellmouth.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/4ef20340-037f-4856-a79f-5db5546c03ad/fox-reynard-royal-10.webp Blogs - Marching monsters and the many faces of medieval grotesques Reynard the Fox preaches to a variety of fowl, soon to be devoured. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/a4a2a877-bf08-499f-99b7-00dc9ab68f8a/Reynard+the+fox+19th.jpg Blogs - Marching monsters and the many faces of medieval grotesques - It’s a tale as old as authority itself, and it’s a method as old as commentary that we use art to satirize structures of the time. We are fortunate the preservation of illuminated manuscripts has guaranteed such stories can remain ever-present and ever relevant. Even centuries later, Reynard the Fox is still illustrated, as seen in this 19th-century depiction by Wilhelm von Kaulbach. https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/category/images monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/category/manuscripts monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/category/devotional monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/category/grotesques monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/tag/bestiaries monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/tag/manuscripts monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/tag/animals monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/read/tag/grotesques monthly 0.5 https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/home daily 1.0 2025-10-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/689a03031d8a1a43a0a2a901/432b9fe0-2a5b-43e6-9ee3-4a3534311544/Bridal+Scene+-+Jrg+Breu+the+Elder+German+about+14751476+-+15372214.png https://www.foldsinthefolio.com/contact daily 0.75 2025-08-12