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In medieval Europe , some handcraft books were bound with skin from an unexpected germ : stamp .
A new analysis of ancient deoxyribonucleic acid found in knightly books from European abbeys reveals that these stamp come from the northwestern Atlantic Ocean , where they were hunt in the twelfth and 13th centuries for their hide . The sealskins were then swop by the Norse posterity of theVikingsbefore ending up as book cover .
The research team studying some of the medieval books in 2016.
In the study , published Wednesday ( April 9 ) in the journalRoyal Society Open Science , a squad of researchers subjected 32 medieval al-Qur’an tobiocodicological analyses — a series of methods aimed at revealing biological information uphold in leaf-book - style books .
mediaeval codex were written on slice of parchment made of animal skin , that were bound together with wood , leather , cord or thread . Some also had a 2nd protective cover , called a sack , which was often made from boar or deer skin .
But the new study revealed that some shift were really made from seal instead .
Two of the books that the researchers investigated were bound with harbor sealskin.
The researchers began their investigation at the Library of Clairvaux Abbey in Champagne , France , which contain 1,450 medieval books produced by scribes at this Cistercian abbey , part of a Catholic spiritual social club . focalise on 19 books created between 1140 and 1275 , the experts used lot spectrometry , a technique that can reveal the chemic makeup of an physical object , and ancientDNAanalysis to reveal that they were all tie up with skin from pinnipeds , a group that includes seals .
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The researchers identified an additional 13 " haired Koran " from " daughter abbey " in France , England and Belgium date to between 1150 and 1250 that were also bound in sealskin .
Researchers found that several medieval books were bound with harbor sealskin from the northwest Atlantic, similar to this one photographed in Iceland.
The ancient DNA analysis helped the researchers specify down which pinniped specie eight of the skin came from , pinpointing harbor , harp and bearded SEAL . to boot , they were able to severalize that the seals issue forth from a astonishingly diverse geographical area , including Scandinavia , Denmark , Scotland and either Greenland or Iceland .
" The skins were either obtained through trade or as part of the church tithe , " work lead authorÉlodie Lévêque , an expert in Scripture preservation at Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne University , tell Live Science in an email . " It is in question , " she said , that these ski binding " would have be without the availability of sealskins from Norse germ . "
All of the sealskin books were made in abbey located along make love 13th - century European trading routes , the research worker note in their study ; these were also Norse trading road . In particular , theNorse traded walrus ivory and furs from Greenlandto mainland Europe , and diachronic track record suggest they used sealskin to pay tithe to the Catholic church building in the thirteenth one C .
" The Cistercians had a especial penchant for white and discreet word form of luxury , which aligns well with the aesthetic qualities of sealskin , " Lévêque said . Another well - known sect , the Benedictines , favored darker chromaticity .
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However , the monks may not have know that their prize book - binding skins were really from seal , she enunciate , since there was no full term for the animal in the Gallic language at the time .
The widespread economic consumption of sealskins in gothic libraries has challenge late assumptions about which species were used to truss books , the researcher write in their subject . It has also revealed that the trade meshwork between the Norse in Greenland and abbeys in France was extensive and robust .
But there is no obvious correlation between the genuine contents of the books and the use of sealskin blanket , and no written account for the utilization of sealskins in leger - binding survives , the researcher mention in their study .
" The distinctive white , furred cover may therefore have been appreciated alone for their ocular and environmental quality – they ’re waterproofed – rather than for any cognition of their zoological and geographic origin , " Lévêque said .
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