Ruling Pattern of the Parchment Codices in the Context of the Technological Development of Ancient Russian Booklore

Abstract

At the beginning of the 15th century, there was a process of transition from manual to mechanical ruling or ruling pattern. With this type of ruling, the result was achieved not by running the tip of a knife or an awl over the parchment, but by using a template. A similar tool had been used since the 12th century in Oriental manuscripts and was called “mastara”. In Europe, it was called “tabula ad rigandum” in Latin, “planche à régler” in French, “rule-board” in English. In the Russian tradition it was known as “carax”, “terax”, “kerax”, etc. In Europe, it apparently appeared at the same time as in the Old Russian tradition — at the beginning of the 15th century. The earliest ruling pattern (1403) was found in the copy of Izbornik of 1073 originating from the Moscow Andronikov monastery of the Savior. The main feature of this ruling pattern is the absence of any kind of pricks on the margins of the parchment sheet. The introduction of the template into written practice led to a change in the traditional schemes and principles of ruling of Old Russian parchment codexes. The ruling known patterns with threads of animal or plant origins worked well on paper, but clearly could not leave a mark on a harder material, such as parchment. An experiment was conducted with a specially made template with metal threads and modern parchment, similar in its properties to the medieval one. The result of the successful experiment revealed that the application of the ruling pattern on parchment was only possible if it was preliminarily softened with water.