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The history of the codex in the Ethiopian highlands stretches back over a millennium to the earliest centuries of the now ubiquitous book form. The legacy of Ethiopia’s bound manuscript tradition – one of the longest continuously practiced in the world – has been carried forward by countless scribes, passing their skills down through generation after generation. This history is evident not only in the hundreds of thousands of bound manuscripts that survive, many still in active use, but also in those still being produced today. Ethiopian Bookbinding Tradition is the first major work to detail and to describe this tradition and the practices of the Ethiopian scribal bound book, providing a comprehensive technical study of its materials, structures, and techniques. It gathers and synthesizes the significant but dispersed and often inaccessible body of literature on the subject with further observations and analysis provided by the author. Through in-depth discussion and extensive illustrations, this book meets the long-overdue need to bring Ethiopian bookbinding into the spotlight as a significant tradition in its own right and to firmly establish it within the larger history of bookbinding.
Bill Hanscom has created a foundational work that will inform and guide future research and description of the Ethiopian binding tradition for a long time to come. This beautiful book is truly a testament to one of our most ancient and historically important binding traditions, and it will serve as a treasured resource for those who have custody of these bindings.
— Julia Miller
Bill Hanscom is a conservation professional, educator, and author. Since 2009, they have worked as a conservation technician for special collections at Harvard Library’s Weissman Preservation Center. They taught undergraduate courses in bookbinding, letterpress printing, book art theory, and independent publishing for the Book Arts BFA program at Montserrat College of Art from 2010 to 2023, serving as its coordinator for seven years. For more than a decade, Bill has regularly taught workshops on historical bookbinding structures and other book arts and preservation topics for North Bennet Street School, the Guild of Bookworkers, and other organizations. Their experience in higher education began in mechanical engineering and commercial printing before shifting to the arts, studying Graphic Design at Montserrat College of Art (BFA, 2003) and Book Arts & Printmaking at The University of the Arts (MFA, 2008). They maintain an independent research and writing practice focused on historical bookbinding structures and methods. Bill lives in Rockport, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children.
Foreword; Preface and Acknowledgments; Amharic Transliteration and Ethiopian Names; Introduction; Chapter One: The Codex in Christian Ethiopia – Ownership and use; Estimated numbers of extant manuscripts; Dating manuscripts and their bindings; Scribal training and labor; Chapter Two: Materials – Parchment and other writing surfaces; Leather; Boards; Thread; Textiles; Chapter Three: Structure – Measurements; Quire composition; Endleaves; Chapter Four: Construction – Sewing; Board attachment; Spine wrappers; Board linings and mirrors; Covering; Endbands; Fastenings; Chapter Five: Decoration – Tooling; Tool designs; Motifs; Metal ornamentation; Uncommon embellishments; Chapter Six: Protection and Transport – Over-covers; Satchels; Conclusion; Appendix A: Codices referenced by location/collection; Appendix B: Results of analysis of thread from a nineteenth-century manuscript; Appendix C: Proportions of psalters (fourteenth to twentieth centuries); Appendix D: Expanded descriptions of satchels; Appendix E: Early European accounts; Glossary of Ethiopian bookbinding terms; Bibliography and published catalogs of Ethiopian manuscripts; Indices; About the author