Cambridge Bookbindings : The Demon Binder, ca.1490

Terence., Jouenneaux, Guy -1507

Cambridge Bookbindings

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>In the middle of the 15th century, bookbinders across Europe began to cover books with tanned leather rather than tawed skin, commonly then decorated using heated brass tools with engraved designs. This became the standard method for making bindings for several centuries thereafter. The technique came to Cambridge around 1475-80 and several late fifteenth-century workshops here made many such bindings.</p><p>This one comes from a workshop nicknamed the “Demon Binder”, one of the earliest ones that can be identified in Cambridge. In most cases, we do not know the names of the operators of these early binderies, and scholars have given them names based on one or more stamps from their toolset (this is how binderies are identified, by recognising groups of tools which appear together in varying combinations). One of his tools, which can be seen on this book, features what looks like a horned demon in a lozenge.</p><p>Wooden boards with slightly tapered/cushioned edges are covered with mid-brown calfskin, blind-tooled to a common pattern using several small stamps. Rebacked, with new spine leather and new endleaves; remains of clasps.</p><p>Dr David Pearson</p></p>