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Jeweled bookbinding or jewelled bookbinding is a type of bookbinding by which books are bound then ornamented with precious stones, gems, metals, and jewels set in covers made of leather, metal, velvet, canvas, or cloth. Regarded as an art form, jeweled bookbinding has historically required the collaborative efforts of craftsmen and artisans from various disciplines, including gilders, goldsmiths, jewelers, etc. The production of books with jeweled binding, sometimes referred to as treasure books, coincides much with the development of books themselves, experiencing major regard during the Middle Ages in conjunction with illuminated manuscripts and patronage by the Church or royal figures. True examples of this type of binding are rare, existing currently only in museums and private collections.

Technique and Production
The techniques for producing jeweled bookbinding have evolved over the course of history with the technologies and methods used in creating books. During the early Christian or Common Era around the fourth century, manuscripts on papyrus or vellum scrolls first became flattened and turned into books with cut pages tied together through holes punched in their margins. Beginning in the fifth century, books were sewn together in this manner using leather thongs to make the bind stronger and longer lasting with wooden boards placed on top and bottom to keep the pages flat. These thongs then came to be laced into the boards and covered entirely by leather.

Boards afforded the opportunity for decorative ornamentation, with metal casings set into the wood for the installation of precious gems, stones, and jewels. The cover material would then be laid over the casings by hand and cut around the rim of the casings to reveal the jewels. The books typically bound were Gospels and other religious books made for use within the church. In the Middle Ages, the responsibility of creating adorned books went to metalworkers and guilders, not the bookbinders, who worked with sheets of gold, silver, or copper to create jeweled and enameled panels that were nailed separately into the wooden boards.

Since the medieval period, binding techniques have not changed drastically. The process is still done by hand, though now there have been some updates with modern tools and the use of paper over parchment or vellum.

Other Forms
The decorative jeweled technique as an art form was also extended beyond the book’s cover. Decorative book clasps or straps were made with jewels or repoussé metal from the 12th century onward, particularly in Holland and Germany. In Scotland and Ireland from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, holy books were enshrined in a decorated metal slipcase or box called a cumdach. These objects could be worn around the neck by soldiers in battle like a protective amulet. Jeweled slipcases or boxes were also used to house small editions of the Qur’an during this time period.

In fashion in the 16th century were 'books of golde': small, devotional books adorned with jeweled or enameled covers worn as a girdle or around the neck like pieces of jewelry by the English court. These pieces can be seen in portraits from the period and records of jewels from the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI.

History of Practice
Key to the production of jeweled bookbinding throughout the course of history has been its patronage. These books were considered a luxury affordable only by the wealthy elite, due the cost and importance of manuscripts as well as the extended time and labor required for transcription and binding. Jeweled bindings could be ordered and compiled by private collectors, commissioned by dignitaries of the Church or members of a royal family, or commissioned by individuals as presents for royal or noble figures and vice versa.

Jeweled books were not transported often away from the private libraries of their patrons, some becoming quite heavy with the amalgamation of decorative components from gold and silversmiths, enamellers, and ivory-carvers. Often created to contain relics of saints, these large ornamental books were sometimes seen suspended from golden rods and carried in the public processions of Byzantine emperors.

Due to the collaboration of several artisans, jeweled bindings of the Byzantine period were not entirely unified. Apart from being completed at different times, and sometimes in different countries, some were also removed and readapted for other volumes or reset with new pieces as time passed. An example of such work would be the covers for the Lindau Gospels, with the lower or back cover created in the eighth century while the upper or front cover was completed in the ninth century in different parts of South Germany, both incorporating gilded metal ornamented with jewels. As became common practice, jeweled bindings such as these were used mainly for religious books such as Gospels or prayer books and thereby included religious subjects and iconography into their design.

Through the support and patronage of the Church, jeweled bindings in England grew as an art form in conjunction with illuminated manuscripts, which were created in the early Middle Ages within the scriptoria of monasteries for use in private libraries. Unlike the singular crafts employed by various trade guilds outside the Church and the Throne, monks alone were the only individuals allowed to practice many forms of art, allowing them to act as writers, illuminators, binders, and goldsmiths in the production of treasure bookbinding for the Church. In this way, the skills applied to jeweled covers for devotional books was of a exclusionary artisanal order.

Outside the monasteries, bookbinders’ guilds during the Middle Ages were restricted by royal decree by quantitative limitations for the application of jewels. Though this did not significantly affect the craft of decorating books, it did mandate the number of jewels allowed to be used in concurrence with the rank of the noble who placed the book’s commission. Few bindings produced in England by monks during the early medieval period survived the dissolution of the monasteries with the English Reformation through the reign of Henry VIII, by which ecclesiastical libraries in England were raided and treasures were removed under an act to ‘to strip off and pay into the king’s treasury all gold and silver found on Popish books of devotion.’ This practice was not as heavily executed abroad during the Protestant Reformation, therefore leaving some jeweled bindings to survive.

On the Continent during the fifteenth century, the production and selling of manuscripts centered in towns throughout Germany and the Low Countries like Bruges, Antwerp, and Cologne. With the invention of the printing press mid-century, the book and binding trades expanded in England through the importation of books from Germany, the Low Countries, Italy, and France. Design styles and production techniques were also influenced by binders emigrating from these regions. Despite the commoditization of book production due to the printing press, the artistic tradition of jeweled bookbinding continued in England, though less frequently and often in simpler designs. Luxury bindings were still favored by the English Court, which is evident from the records on the private library of Queen Elizabeth I, who favored velvet bindings. Upon a visit to the Royal Library in 1598, Paul Hentzner remarked on the books ‘bound in velvet of different colors, though chiefly red, with clasps of gold and silver; some have pearls, and precious stones, set in their bindings.’ Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the style evolved to be one using velvet, satin, silk, and canvas in bookbinding decorated less with jewels and more with embroidery, metal threads, pearls, and sequins.

Revival
After jeweled bookbinding enjoyed its renaissance, the practice waned until it experienced a revival near the turn of the twentieth century in England. Highly influential in the revival of this style were Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe of the Sangorski & Sutcliffe bindery. A famous example of their bindings was created in 1909 for a copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which included good tooling, inlays of colored leather, and 1050 jewels in a peacock design scheme. Today, a third reproduction of this binding is the only one to survive after the first version was lost in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the second one, reproduced to Sutcliffe’s design by his nephew Stanley Bray, was damaged in the Blitz during World War II. Bray’s second attempt at recreating the design, the third version that survives, was placed in the British Library in 1989. Other binderies creating books in this style during this period were the companies of Rivière and Zaehnsdorf.

Modern
In 1998, Rob Shepherd of Shepherds Bookbinders bought both Zaehnsdorf and Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Presently, binding with jewels is a rare practice, and binding companies both large and small are finding the art form becoming less viable in today’s society. Furthermore, due to the proliferation of reproductions and forgeries in conjunction with their destruction or repurposing throughout history, true examples jeweled bookbinding are very rare. Bindings that exist today are housed in private collections or can be found in libraries and museums across the world.