RECRAFTED: The reuse of parchment manuscripts in early modern textile crafts
RECRAFTED: The reuse of parchment manuscripts in early modern textile crafts
Name of applicant
Charlotte Epple
Title
Doctoral fellow
Institution
University of Antwerp
Amount
DKK 2,751,350
Year
2026
Type of grant
Internationalisation Fellowships
What?
In the past, people often cut up old books and reused the leaves to make other things when they were no longer interested in reading them. They made book bindings, but also shoe soles, sewing patterns, or lace prickings out of the old parchment. RECRAFTED will study these fragments of books that were reused in the textile crafts in Britain and the Low Countries between 1500 and 1850.
Why?
These bits of parchment with old texts on them are hiding in historical textile collections, mostly uncatalogued and unstudied. They can tell the stories of how texts and ideas circulated and changed over time, and how early modern societies economised with finite material resources. Studying reuse in the pre-modern textile industries can contribute to current debates around similar themes.
How?
RECRAFTED will track down fragments in collections of historical textiles and create a corpus of data to chart the survival of this material. Studying contemporary sources mentioning this reuse of parchment, for example in trade archives or antiquarian literature, will offer context. The results will be made publicly available.