Beyond Repair: Reflections on Late Medieval Parchment Scarf-Joined Repairs

ABSTRACT The permanence of parchment, its salvage-ability and persistence, is demonstrated by the centuries-long tradition of medieval parchment repair. Some conservators of rare books and manuscripts, including Anthony Cains, have recommended parchment be repaired with parchment, paper with paper. This contribution contrasts Cains’s method for parchment repair with late medieval parchment repair techniques. Medieval scarf-joinery, a technique not recommended as modern conservation practice for reasons outlined, ought to be better recognized in medieval manuscripts as interventions that go well beyond repair. With examples ranging in date from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, medieval scarf-joined parchment repairs are appreciated for their invisibility and as sites for embellishment and concealment. By revealing the presence of these repairs, we might better recognize issues affecting a manuscript’s condition while understanding the purposes to which scarf-joinery methods were deployed. As expressions of craft refinement and as evident ‘workmanship of risk’, late medieval scarf-joined parchment repair techniques are appreciated not as ancillary to a manuscript’s production, but as sometimes even central to its original construction.