Case 1

Byzantine Binding 

This model was created in a workshop exploring the main structural characteristics of Byzantine bookbinding. Byzantine bindings have simple unsupported link stitch sewing, but they have other distinctive features that add visual interest, such as wooden board covers with channels milled into their edges and pronounced raised endbands sewn along the board edges and into the text block. This model is covered in full goatskin with braided leather clasp straps and blind tooling on the cover.

Coptic Binding

The Copts were Egyptian Christians. The sewing structure of the Coptic binding is a link stitch in which each folded section of the book is linked to the one below. 

The boards of historic Coptic bindings were most typically constructed of adhered layers of papyrus. These bindings were traditionally covered in leather after they were sewn.

The Coptic binding structure dates from the 4th century AD through the Middle Ages.

Ethiopian Binding

With its red goatskin covering and braided leather endbands, this model of an Ethiopian binding is a more dressed-up companion to our uncovered Coptic model.

Girdle Books

These bindings are models of a traditional medieval girdle book with an extended covering of soft leather often ending with a Turk's head knot. The book was bound in this way so the knot could be tucked under a girdle or belt and the book swung up for reading. Girdle books were small portable books, usually books of hours or other religious texts, worn by medieval European monks, clergy and aristocratic nobles as a popular accessory between the 13th and 16th centuries. Although these models were made with simple materials, girdle books carried by nobility were often decorated with metalwork and even jewels.

Glazier Codex

This is an actual-size model of the Glazier Codex, an illuminated parchment manuscript of the first half of the Acts of the Apostles, written in a Middle-Egyptian dialect of Coptic. The manuscript and its binding are thought to date from the 5th century.

The original text consists of fifteen gatherings of parchment sheets; this model is made with paper gatherings. The sewing is a link style variation, with simple link style endbands. The Glazier Codex has a decorated leather spine piece that extends beyond the head edge of the spine, nearly covering (and thus protecting) the head edge of the text block. The Codex has bare wooden boards with two wrapping bands, one extending from the top edge of the upper cover, and one from the fore edge of the upper cover. Each wrapping band is finished with a decorated bone slip used to anchor the wrapped bands. There is evidence that the codex had a bookmark attached to the outer corner of the lower board.

Wooden Boards/Quarter Leather Binding

In medieval and Renaissance times, wood was used for book covers. This model shows the red oak covers, goatskin covering part of the book, and metal clasps used to keep the book closed. The endbands in green are executed in an older style than the ones we commonly use today.