Medieval Bookbinding

I've been reading a great book called The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, by J. A. Szirmai. He writes about a variety of bindings that were used in the middle ages, but the chapter that I was most interested in is the one on limp leather bindings. Not a lot has been written about the history of this style of binding, so it was good to be able to learn more about it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with them, limp leather bindings are basically soft cover leather books (here is an example of one that I made), with decorative stitching on the spine that looks pretty, and also attaches the paper to the leather. I love limp leather bindings, because they are strong and elegant, and also have a wonderful history. It's cool to be able to write in a book that is made basically the same way that one would have been made 700 years ago!