Birgit wrote:

>In reading about the Konungsbók (Codex Regius), it says that it is

written on

>vellum. I looked in the dictionary, and it said that vellum is sheepskin,
>calfskin or kitskin (even though the word "vellum" comes actually from the
>word for "calf", related to "veal" etc.).
>
>Does anyone know if the Konungsbok manuscript is actually calfskin? What is
>the most common skin used for Icelandic manuscripts? And what are the
>advantages of calfskin, it is smoother than the others, or just bigger?
>
>It seems that it would have been much easier in Iceland to find sheepskin
>than calfskin. For a quarto size book with about 100 pages, I figure one
>would have needed about 12 animal skins.

Most Icelandic manuscripts are on sheepskin vellum, simply because that's
the best supply they had. Since there are four quarto sheets per skin
(hence the term 'quarto' ;-) and that sheet is actually two pages once
folded in half, it would require 12.5 sheepskins to make a 100 page
manuscript - good estimate.

I don't know of any particular advantage to using calfskin over sheepskin,
and I would imagine it to be much more expensive. I don't know for certain
that Konungsbok is sheepskin, but that would be my guess.

-Selv

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