Study of bookbindings

The history of bookbinding in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance reflects the broader cultural, religious, and intellectual transformations of Europe. In the medieval period, bookbinding was primarily a monastic craft, with scribes and binders working in scriptoria to produce illuminated manuscripts for liturgical and scholarly use. Bindings were often functional, made from wooden boards covered in leather and reinforced with metal fittings for protection. Over time, as universities and urban workshops emerged, bookbinding evolved into a specialised trade, catering to the growing demand for books among clerics, scholars, and nobles.

By the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Low Countries - encompassing modern-day Belgium and The Netherlands - became a thriving center of book production and innovation. Cities like Bruges, Antwerp, and Ghent were hubs of artistic and commercial activity, where the rise of the printing press in the 15th century revolutionised the making of books. Flemish and Dutch binders developed distinctive styles, from Gothic blind-tooled designs to more elaborate Renaissance motifs featuring gold tooling and painted covers.

During my studies at Radboud University Nijmegen I attended lectures in codicology and palaeography under Albert Gruijs and André Geurts. At that time I became particularly fascinated by 15th and 16th century bookbindings and when concluding those lectures I had the opportunity to study bookbindings from Zutphen (archive and library) and to publish about them (see the 'revived' articles - in Dutch - below). Shortly afterwards I joined the Belgian-Dutch Bookbindings Society and I got a bit involved in its work on creating manuals for advancing the study of bookbindings.