Leaf on vellum from a manuscript Breviary.

A wonderful leaf from a medieval breviary : ivory-white vellum, wide margins, clearly visible ruling* and the ?prickings*?. A very regular book hand in brown/black ink that is pleasing to the eye. Above all : four initials that are small works of art with pen work in red and blue!! *The next stage was to rule the sheets. Taking a few at a time, with the cream-colored hair side and the whiter flesh side alternately upward, the sheets were folded and pricked through with an awl or a knife point, the resulting ?prick marks? indicated the margin and showed where the lines were to be ruled. This process ensured that each page in a gathering would match its neighbor perfectly?in the color of the writing surface, the text area, and the line spacing. An earlier practice was to rule the lines with a pointed metal or bone stylus pressed hard along the edge of a ruler, producing a scored line on the hair side of the sheet and a corresponding raised line on the other. After the twelfth century lead pencils or plummets became more common tools, this would have been a piece of lead set into a handle, or perhaps cut into a disc shape like a tailor?s chalk today. In later periods still, lines would be ruled with a pen using pale ink.