Early modern paper was made of rags, as I have written in the last blog entry, and was thus a true recycling product. Even though the term ‘recycling’ did not exist then, it was common and ubiquitous to re-use and re-purpose everything. Clothes were mended, handed down and even cut up to be made into new clothes. When eventually unfit for wear, they became the ‘raw’ material for paper. And once the deinking process was invented in 1774, paper itself was re-made into new paper. Before and even after that, paper was re-used for a wide variety of objects. Wastepaper was sold to pharmacists, grocers, bookbinders, etc.* It was used as wall insulation, toilet paper and wrapping material for spices, cheese, fish & chips, and other small goods. Bookbinders used it as flyleaves, pastedowns, spine support, guards and pasteboards.
But paper was not the only writing material that was recycled in such ways. Parchment manuscripts that were no longer needed were taken apart and single leaves or bifoliums used as binding, spine support, guards, etc. Papish manuscripts, for example, often suffered such fate after liturgical reforms, the Reformation and dissolution of monasteries. They were used as toilet paper or wrapping material, to clean boots, even as scarecrow or to scour guns and to stop the bung-hole of a beer barrel, as Anna Reynolds demonstrated.
In Iceland, we find an abundance of recycled parchment and paper leaves. Most often we find them as binding covers, spine support, guards, flyleaves and paste-downs. Apart from these, we find a few that were recycled in a more curious environment. A parchment leaf, e.g., was re-purposed as sieve. Parchment was connected to textiles, too, since loose leaves were used for clothing. Famous Icelandic examples include the lining of a bishop’s mitre, now AM 666 b 4to, and the sewing pattern for a waistcoat and shoe inlays, now AM 122 b fol.
What curiously recycled paper and parchment leaves have you encountered?
* I have not found conclusive information when recycled paper became common in Iceland and would greatly appreciate hints and references!
Further reading:
www.Handrit.is (accessed 15 February 2021)
https://manuscript.ku.dk/manuscript_types/fragments/ (accessed 15 February 2021)
Anna Reynolds, “ʻSuch dispersive scattredness’: Early Modern Encounters with Binding Waste.” Journal of the Northern Renaissance 8 (2017) http://www.northernrenaissance.org/such-dispersive-scattredness-early-modern-encounters-with-binding-waste/ (accessed 15 February 2021)
Matthew James Driscoll and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, 66 Manuscripts from the Arnamagnæan Collection. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2015.
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