Centuries-old books were bound with ‘hairy’ animal skin sourced from global trade: study
Wonder how much the tariffs were on this?
A trove of books written by medieval-era French monks were bound with bizarre “hairy” covers from far-away animals — shedding light on a booming, ancient system of global trade, according a new study.
Many of the more than 1,000 leathery tombs on display at the Library of Clairvaux Abbey in Champagne were made with seal and walruses skin from areas such as Greenland and Scandinavia, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The hair-raising 13th century reads were previously thought to be bound with local boar and deer skin, the report states.
“Contrary to the prevailing assumption that books were crafted from locally sourced materials, it appears that the [monks] were deeply embedded in a global trading network,” researchers wrote.
To test the tomes, scientists examined seven skin bindings and conducted a genetic probe into nine more books, according to the study.
They found some of the animal-skin DNA belonged to harp seal populations from Scandinavia, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland — from the land-locked region of Champagne.
The manuscripts were likely penned by monks who traveled “in areas that are situated on 13th-century European trading routes,” according to the study.
The choice to use the skin of seals — which have coarse hair that helps keep them warm in icy water — may have stemmed from their color, which was white in the 13th century but has since faded to brown.
The authors of the books were known in the 13th century as “white monks,” the researchers said.
