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Parchment was made from animal hides and was thus easier to obtain. In southern Europe it was made mainly from sheep and goat hides; the insides of the skin were thoroughly smoothed and calcined, while the hairy sides were left rougher. In central and northern Europe, parchment was usually made from calves’ skins, and both sides of the hides were thoroughly smoothed and calcined.

Paper came originally from China. During the 8th century AD, it spread to the Arab world and from thence to Byzantium, where it was manufactured from linen and was used from the 11th to the 13th centuries for imperial documents. After that time ordinary paper was used in the Byzantine Empire. In the West the use of paper, most common at first in southern Italy and Spain, had begun to spread by the beginning of the 12th century. Germany and southern France began to import paper from Spain and Italy in the 13th century, and soon afterward it had reached England by way of Bordeaux. But paper did not altogether replace parchment, which long remained in use, especially for solemn documents.

Notes:

Middle Ages – средние века

The Merovingian kings [mer`vindin] – франкская династия королей Меровинги

the Alps – Альпы

the Byzantine Empire – Византийская империя

Bordeaux – г. Бордо

1. Answer the following questions:

1) What were documents made of in the past? What materials were used for writing?

2) Which of them were used during the Middle Ages?

3) Who was the main producer of papyrus?

4) Why did North of the Alps papyrus disappear?

5) What was parchment made from?

6) Where did paper appear for the first time?

7) What was paper made from?

8) What countries in the West Europe used paper?

2. Make sentences using the words from A and endings from B:

3. Find in the text the English equivalents to the following words:

доступный / производить (3 слова) / шкура (2 слова) / папа римский / стебель / разглаживать, выравнивать / прожигать, прокаливать, кальцинировать / торжественный / полотно, лен / оставаться

4. Find in the text synonyms to the following words:

vanish (v) _________________________________________

accidentally (adv) ___________________________________

perfectly, completely (adv) ____________________________

substitute (v) ______________________________________

serious, ceremonial (adj) _____________________________

extend (v) ________________________________________

attain, gain (v) _____________________________________

common, regular (adj) _______________________________

Read the text and do the tasks after it.

The medium for writing was ink, generally a mixture of oak gall and copper vitriol. Originally black, ink made north of the Alps sometimes shows a reddish-brown hue, while that made in Italy may contain tinges of brown and yellow. Over the centuries most of these colours have lightened as a result of atmospheric conditions. The Byzantine emperors used purple ink for their signatures. This custom was occasionally taken over by the Lombard rulers of Italy and, later, by the Norman kings of Sicily. Another custom of Byzantine origin is the use of gold lettering.

Throughout the entire Roman Empire, the language used in documents was primarily Latin. Greek was also used, and, during the latter part of the 6th century AD, it slowly superseded Latin in the East. From then onward, Greek was the language of Byzantine documents until the end of the Byzantine Empire (1453). In the West, the collapse of the empire and the establishment of barbarian kingdoms led to a vulgarization of Latin, written as well as spoken.

Latin has always been used for papal documents and for most public and private charters, and it was used for international documents well into post-Renaissance times, until it was superseded by French as the language of diplomacy. In public and private documents, use of the vernacular alongside Latin gradually developed. Apart from its early and unique appearance in the documents of the Anglo-Saxons in England, no vernacular was used in charters before the 12th century. At the Norman Conquest (1066), use of Anglo-Saxon in English documents soon stopped, and no more vernacular was used there until some Norman French was introduced in the 13th century, and Middle English in the 15th century. There was an increasing use of the vernacular in Italian and French documents from the 12th century and in Germany from the 13th; but in medieval times Latin was never outstripped by the vernacular.

1. Answer the following questions:

1) What was ink made of?

2) What colour was ink?

3) What languages were documents written on?

4) What caused the vulgarization of Latin?

5) What documents were written in Latin?

6) In what countries was vernacular used?

2. Find the English equivalents for the following words:

средство / золотое тиснение / цвет, оттенок (3 слова) / заменить (2 слова) / выцвести / происхождение / весь / падение, крах / основание

3. Match the words on the left with their definitions on the right:

4. Make nouns from the following verbs:

5. Say what part of speech are the following words. Translate them into Russian. Make your own sentences with these words:

generally _______________

originally _______________

occasionally _______________

primarily ________________

slowly ________________

gradually ________________

early ________________

Read the text and do the tasks after it.

A correct assessment of the hand in which it was written is vital to ascertaining the provenance and authenticity of a document. Thus, the knowledge of paleography, different styles of ancient writing, is a skill essential to diplomatics. The broad basis of such knowledge begins with acquaintance with the general styles of writing current at particular times and places. This varied with the way the pen was held; whether the writing was cursive or had the letters formed separately; whether it was majuscule, all the letters being contained between a single pair of horizontal lines, or minuscule, with parts of the letters extending above and below the lines. There is a further distinction between what is called book hand and the business, or court, hand at one time used for documents.

In Europe the Roman capital letters were distinguished as rustic or square, uncial, and Roman majuscule and minuscule cursive. They influenced all subsequent writing in the West. The Roman curial style (from the Curia, or papal court), used in the papal chancery until the 12th century, was a derivation of late Roman minuscule cursive. After the disintegration of the Western Empire, the Merovingian Franks used a Roman provincial script for their documents. Distinctive forms developed elsewhere, in Visigothic Spain and in Ireland. The Irish script, a half uncial (uncials are rounded letters) and a minuscule script, spread to Anglo-Saxon England and thence to the European continent. Under the

Carolingian rulers, a particularly clear and attractive minuscule book hand (Caroline minuscule) was developed; modifications of this gradually became used in documents and eventually spread also to Italy, England, and Spain. A “Gothic,” more pointed form of script developed since the 11th century in northern France and soon spread all over Europe, so that writing became more spidery in appearance. In the early years of the Renaissance, Italian scholars such as Poggio (Poggio Bracciolini) and Niccol`o Niccoli developed a minuscule based on the Carolingian, and variants of this style were used by the Venetian Aldus Manutius and other pioneers of printing.