Scratching the surface: the use of sheepskin parchment to deter textual erasure in early modern legal deeds.
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Publication Date
2021Journal Title
Herit Sci
ISSN
2050-7445
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
9
Issue
1
Pages
29
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Doherty, S. P., Henderson, S., Fiddyment, S., Finch, J., & Collins, M. (2021). Scratching the surface: the use of sheepskin parchment to deter textual erasure in early modern legal deeds.. Herit Sci, 9 (1), 29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-021-00503-6
Abstract
Historic legal deeds are one of the most abundant resources in British archives, but also one of the most neglected. Despite the millions that survive, we know remarkably little about their manufacture, including the species of animal on which they were written. Here we present the species identification of 645 sixteenth-twentieth century skins via peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS), demonstrating the preferential use of sheepskin parchment. We argue that alongside their abundance and low cost, the use of sheepskins over those of other species was motivated by the increased visibility of fraudulent text erasure and modification afforded by the unique structure of their skin. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40494-021-00503-6.
Keywords
Biocodicology, Legal deeds, Manuscripts, Parchment, Proteomics, Sheepskin
Sponsorship
European Research Council (787282)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-021-00503-6
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/330165
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