Paper Trails: Icelandic Manuscripts and Books

USE AND REUSE OF PAPER 27-28 ... | Papertrails

Paper and Playing Cards

A recent find of a playing card on the street reminded me that playing cards were immensely popular in the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. And obviously, one needed paper to produce...

Paper and Legal Power

The analysis of paper use is one of our main aims in our project Life of Paper. The bréfabækur of Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson (1605-1675), books with copies of important letters and documents that...

PROGRAMME USE AND REUSE | Papertrails

Land Registers and Waste Paper

On this fine Icelandic National Day (hip hip hooray!), we’ll look at a manuscript that contains drafts of a jarðabók, a land register. The best known land register was compiled by Árni Magnússon and...

Health and Safety Hazards in Paper Mills

I ended the last blog with a comment that some low paper quality phenomena carry names inspired by the human body, perhaps because paper making took its physical toll on paper makers. As Günter...

Of Clouds, Tears and Bleeding

On the last day of the conference in Verona in September 2023 we visited the paper museum in Toscolano near Lake Garda. One of the highlights there was the possibility to make paper ourselves, and...

USE AND REUSE OF PAPER 27-28 ... | Papertrails