A Romanesque Binding in the J. Paul Getty Museum: Materials, Craft Technology, and Monastic Reform

Abstract

ABSTRACT An original twelfth-century binding in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles was studied by Christopher Clarkson in 1994. Unusual features caught his attention, particularly its undecorated tanned leather over-cover (‘chemise’) attached to bare boards by sewn-on ‘turn-in’ flaps and envelope pockets of white alum-tawed skin. With Clarkson’s condition report of the binding as its starting point, this new study situates the binding of the Getty’s Life of St Anselm into a wider context of northern French and Flemish Benedictine and Cistercian bindings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This paper highlights the binding practices of reform monastic orders and their ‘spirit of thrift’.