Spanish Archival Bindings: Summary of Study

While conducting my summer fieldwork at the private archives of the Marques de Santa Maria de Barbara y de la Manresana at his private home of El Castillo de Vilassar de Dalt, I selected and studied a variety of archival bindings to examine the style, structure, and materials used in the construction of bound volumes found in medieval Spanish archives. I documented each binding by photographing its external and internal features, sewing, and watermarks, drawing the binding structure, and recording cataloguing information. In total, 22 bindings were examined, with approximately three hours devoted to the documentation of each and the presentation of the results on this website.

The archival materials of Vilassar de Dalt include parchments and vellum documents, paper documents, bindings with paper, vellum, leather, and cloth covering material, as well as photographs, maps, and other oversized items. The materials range in date from the 11th century forward, with the majority of the materials dating from 1500 - 1700. Of the estimated 2000 bound volumes in the archive, most are bound in limp vellum, with the remainder being leather, paper, or cloth bindings. The majority of the textblocks are of paper, although there are some examples of vellum leaves and early typesetting as well as 20th century printed materials.  

Of the bindings with hand written script, which constitute a majority of the bindings in this study, most appear to have been bound as blank textblocks.   These stationary or ledger bindings, as defined by Jane Greenfield, are commonly characterized as "simple, sturdy bindings that could be made quickly and were therefore inexpensive."   Additionally, these bindings generally have a few thick sections (also to shorten required sewing time), unlined spines, sewing on two or three supports (chiefly on alum tawed skin thongs), simple endbands (on alum tawed skin cores), and a vellum case, "frequently with an envelope flap to protect the information" and attached via the textblock sewing, tacketing, or the sewing supports and endband cores.   Most of these stationary bindings contain blank pages at the end of the textblock or have indexes at the beginning of the binding.  

Examples of stationary or ledger limp vellum bindings:
2004-01, 2004-02, 2004-03, 2004-04, 2004-05, 2004-06, 2004-07, 2004-08, 2004-11, 2004-12, 2004-13, 2004-14,
2004-15, 2004-17, 2004-18, 2004-20, 2004-22

Two bindings contained vellum textblocks and were covered in leather decorated by tacketing and blind tooling:
2004-09, 2004-10

Other bindings:
2004-16 (paper long stitch)
2004-19 (limp vellum - early typesetting)
2004-20 (leather wooden board stationary binding)

The selection of the bindings was not scientific; while processing the bundles of paper documents into custom constructed boxes, I selected bindings which both represented similarities throughout the collection as well as those bindings with rare or interesting features. Prior to the project, I expected to select and document bindings chiefly from the period 1300 - 1600. The earliest binding I could find in the archive was a coverless long stitch paper binding from 1348, while I also found a limp vellum binding dated from the 1860s. I attributed dates to bindings by searching for years within text or in cataloguers' annotations.  

Dates of documented bindings:
1300s: 2004-16
1400s: 2004-12, 2004-21
1500s: 2004-01, 2004-07, 2004-09, 2004-10, 2004-11, 2004-14, 2004-17, 2004-18, 2004-19, 2004-22
1600s: 2004-03, 2004-04, 2004-05, 2004-06, 2004-08, 2004-13, 2004-20
1700s: 2004-02,
1800s: 2004-15

Exterior Features:
Covering material:
Vellum: 2004-01, 2004-02, 2004-04, 2004-05, 2004-06, 2004-08, 2004-15, 2004-17, 2004-18, 2004-19, 2004-22
Vellum (parchment document): 2004-03, 2004-07, 2004-11, 2004-12, 2004-13, 2004-14, 2004-21
Leather: 2004-09, 2004-10, 2004-20
None: 2004-16

Tooling / decoration:
2004-09 (gold and blind tooling)
2004-10 (bling tooling and metal furniture)
2004-20 (blind tooling, tacketing)

Envelope flaps:
2004-01, 2004-02, 2004-06, 2004-07, 2004-08, 2004-15, 2004-20

Closures (toggle and loop, belt, ties, etc.):
2004-01 (toggle and loop)
2004-02 (toggle and loop)
2004-03 (belt)
2004-04 (ties)
2004-05 (beaded toggles and loops)
2004-06 (tie - broken)
2004-07 (toggle and loop)
2004-08 (toggle [missing] and loop [broken])
2004-09 (metal clasps)
2004-10 (metal clasps)
2004-15 (tie)
2004-17 (glass bead toggles and loops)
2004-18 (broken)
2004-19 (broken)
2004-20 (belt - missing)
2004-22 (glass bead toggles and loops)

Interior Structure:
Pastedown:
2004-05 (textblock paper)
2004-09 (vellum)
2004-10 (vellum)
2004-15 (textblock paper)
2004-17 (textblock paper)
2004-20 (paper)
2004-22 (textblock paper)

Media other than iron gall ink:
2004-14, 2004-18, 2004-20, 2004-22

Sections:
1 section: 2004-13, 2004-22
2-3 sections: 2004-01, 2004-04, 2004-05, 2004-07, 2004-16,
4-6 sections: 2004-02, 2004-12, 2004-14, 2004-17, 2004-21
7-14 sections: 2004-08, 2004-10, 2004-11, 2004-18
15+ sections: 2004-03, 2004-06, 2004-09, 2004-15, 2004-19, 2004-20

Sewing:
Long Stitch:
2004-12, 2004-13, 2004-16, 2004-21

Long stitch sewing with brown leather back plates:
2004-01, 2004-02, 2004-07, 2004-08, 2004-11, 2004-14

Sewing on supports:
2004-03 (cord)
2004-04 (alum tawed)
2004-05 (alum tawed)
2004-06 (alum tawed)
2004-09 (cord)
2004-10 (cord)
2004-15 (alum tawed)
2004-17 (alum tawed)
2004-18 (alum tawed)
2004-19 (cords)
2004-20 (unknown)
2004-22 (alum tawed)

Bindings with endbands:
2004-06, 2004-09, 2004-10

Watermarks (paper textblocks):
No watermark visible:
2004-11, 2004-12

One watermark throughtout:
2004-01, 2004-02, 2004-05, 2004-06, 2004-08, 2004-14, 2004-15, 2004-16, 2004-18, 2004-19, 2004-20

Two or more watermarks in binding:
2004-03, 2004-04, 2004-07, 2004-13, 2004-17, 2004-21, 2004-22