Editing Parchment (section)

== Treatments ==
{{See also|Purple parchment}}
To make the parchment more aesthetically pleasing or more suitable for the [[scribe]]s, special treatments were used. According to Reed there were a variety of these treatments. Rubbing [[pumice]] powder into the flesh side of parchment while it was still wet on the frame was used to make it smooth and to modify the surface to enable inks to penetrate more deeply. Powders and pastes of calcium compounds were also used to help remove grease so the ink would not run. To make the parchment smooth and white, thin pastes (starchgrain or staunchgrain) of lime, flour, egg whites and milk were rubbed into the skins.<ref>See for example recipes in the [[Secretum Philosophorum]]</ref>

Meliora di Curci in her paper, "The History and Technology of Parchment Making", notes that parchment was not always white. "[[Cennino Cennini|Cennini]], a 15th-century craftsman provides recipes to tint parchment a variety of colours including purple, indigo, green, red and peach."{{sfn|di Curci|2003}} The Early medieval [[Codex Argenteus]] and [[Codex Vercellensis]], the [[Stockholm Codex Aureus]] and the [[Codex Brixianus]] give a range of luxuriously produced manuscripts all on [[purple vellum]], in imitation of Byzantine examples, like the [[Rossano Gospels]], [[Sinope Gospels]] and the [[Vienna Genesis]], which at least at one time are believed to have been reserved for Imperial commissions.

Many techniques for [[parchment repair]] exist, to restore creased, torn, or incomplete parchments.

=== Reuse ===
{{Main|Palimpsest}}
Between the seventh and the ninth centuries, many earlier parchment manuscripts were scrubbed and scoured to be ready for rewriting, and often the earlier writing can still be read. These recycled parchments are known as [[palimpsest]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brubaker |first=Leslie |title=Dictionary of the Middle Ages |date=1982 |publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-0-684-19073-0 |editor-last=Strayer |editor-first=Joseph Reese |volume=9 |location=New York |pages=355 |chapter=Palimpsest |editor-last2=Jordan |editor-first2=William C. |editor-last3=American Council of Learned Societies}}</ref>