Tag Archives: medieval page layout

Medieval Padding

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31 July 2020

In page layout, text is frequently organized in columns. If the left side is even and the right side is ragged, it is “left-justified”. If it is even on both sides, it is “justified” or “double-justified”.

In contemporary page layout, lines can be padded with software algorithms that add extra space between each character to fill the columns. In the Middle Ages, padding was at the discretion of scribes, and there were numerous strategies.

Strategies for Padding

In early medieval texts and some of the Hebrew texts, the right margin is sometimes padded by stretching out the last character:

Example of line padding in early medieval text
In this rambling Insular script, the right is sometimes justified by stretching the final character. [Source: Vat. Lat. 491]

Sometimes padding was created within the line by spacing out words and stretching some of the ligatures:

The common ligature “st” has been stretched and combined with word spacing to even out the right-hand margin. [Source: ÖAW Hs A 6 (earlier: a IX 21}, c. late 1200s]
Individual letters and ligatures have been stretched to even out columns. In this case, the letter N is chosen, along with the common ligature “st”. [Source BNF Latin 9844]

If the scribe didn’t want to manipulate the letters or was in a hurry, one of the simplest ways to pad out a column was to add a line. In this example, wavy red lines extend the text:

Example of simple form of medieval line padding
Quick and simple line padding in wiggly red lines [Source: British Library Bodmer 91]

The padding Morgan B.25 is equally simple but rises higher from the baseline:

Sometimes padding was more decorative, using repetitive patterns or small drawings of animals or birds. In this example, from Royal 2 Z xviii, a two-tone angled decoration, that can be repeated as necessary, fills the column:

A similar format was used to pad the right-hand side in Pal.lat.26 except that the designs are more varied:

Decorative padding was a creative opportunity. Some rubricators or illustrators drew plants, animals, and many kinds of birds. Arundel 157 has page after page of charming examples, each one a little different:

Medieval line padding with decorative motifs.

Sometimes a simple repetitive pattern was used, with space between each iteration:

Columns are filled with a simple repetitive pattern in red [Source: BAV Borgh.312]

Sometimes the repeating pattern was shaped like a letter:

When the letters were close together, they became visually similar to a decorative pattern. This simple letter-like padding from the early medieval period was still used in the 15th century:

Paragraph-end padding in an early medieval manuscript. [Source: BL Cotton MS Tiberius B V/1]
A simple letter-like repeated v-shape was still in use centuries later, as in this 15th century manuscript, sometimes extended with dots in the middle when it was longer. [Source: Heidelberg Hs. 1012, c. 1460]
Moving the letters closer together gives them a more decorative appearance. [Source: KBR MS 11102]

Sometimes text was justified by spreading out letters or breaking words across a line. In these cases, padding wasn’t needed until the scribe reached the end of the paragraph. If the last line was very short, it wasn’t practical to insert spaces, so padding characters were added instead. In the following example, the paragraph-end has been padded with a simple pattern in alternating colors:

A simple decorative padding pattern has been dressed up with in alternating colors. [KBR Ms 14910-12]

In this example, a more decorative line was added to fill out the last line:

In this manuscript, lines are justified with spacing or word-breaks so that the columns are generally even, except for the last line, which is padded with a decorative line. [Source: Koninklijke Bibliotheek Ms Fabr. 91 4°, ]

Sometimes the last line would be padded with a stretched-out version of the word “AMEN”.

Sometimes larger spaces were added near the end of the line with the last letter capitalized, to create visual balance with the style at the beginning of the line:

In the same manuscript, padding has been inserted between sections of text within the line:

An interesting method of padding within lines, so that sections are separated, rather than adding the padding at the end of each line. [Source: KBR MS 4433-38]

In another manuscript, instead of inserting decorative characters between the words, the letters are stretched:

Lines are padded by stretching some of the characters. This not only evened out the columns, but added aesthetic breaks for the eyes. It was not the easiest technique, it took some planning, and thus was not as common as some of the methods shown earlier. [Source: BNF Latin 9844]

What about the VMS?

Medieval padding caught my attention because it sometimes beings with a shape like “a” and ends with a shape like “v”. Note how closely this pattern resembles aiv av aiiv av aiiv:

In general, padding was added at the ends of lines, but the earlier examples illustrate that there were midline padding strategies as well.

Which makes me wonder whether we should be looking at VMS aiiv in a different way. The pattern includes av, aiv, aiiv, and aiiiv and may be preceded by numerous different glyphs:

A small sample of "ain" patterns in the Voynich Manuscript illustrating that not all are preceded by EVA-d.

The oiv patterns are similar. They are usually at the ends of tokens and are preceded by a variety of glyphs:

However, aiv and oiv patterns are not identical in terms of line position. Even though both are usually in the token-end positions, the oiv tokens do not cluster near the ends of lines as frequently as aiv sequences. The oiv sequences are in line-position 1 about twice as often as aiv sequences:

Here is an example of these tendencies in VMS folio 28v:

Voynich Manuscript minim pattern line affinities

Implications for the Voynich Manuscript

Could the “aiiv” group be a substitute for line-end padding and stretched-out letters? In the VMS, “aiv” patterns are not always preceded by EVA-d. Many other characters precede “aiiv” as in this example on f2v. Also, in this snippet, three of the four line-ends are aiv patterns:

Voynich Manuscript f2v ain

In general, aiv patterns tend to be in the latter half of a line more than the first half, even in text that has not been double-justified.

VMS f82r line-end affinity for aiv patterns

However, this is a slight overall trend. There are sections in which the proportions are even, as in this snippet:

Patterns of aiv on folio 81v that are more evenly distributed across the line [Source: Yale Beinecke 408, c. early 1400s]

However, the longest “aiiiv” pattern falls near the end of the line more often than the beginning:

Here’s a full folio (37v) with aiv and oiv patterns highlighted. Once again, oiv leans more toward the beginning and aiv toward the end:

Voynich Manuscript f37v line affinity patterns for ain and oin sequences.

Summary

I’ve mentioned a few times that I think the emphasis on daiin may be misguided. Forget the “d” (at least for now). We should be looking at the ain patterns (which I call aiv) together with the oin patterns. The fact that they occur in the same parts of tokens, but in different parts of the line, is revealing.

In medieval texts, padding can occur within a line or at the end of a line and padding sometimes shares shapes with regular letters, especially the letters a and v. The aiiiv patterns might not be padding patterns, maybe they are word endings, modifiers, or conjunctions. But it’s something to think about. Maybe the shape was inspired by padding patterns even if the interpretation is different. Depending on what precedes the aiv sequence in the VMS, it may serve more than one purpose. But the pattern has an affinity for the ends of tokens and the latter parts of lines and its cousin oiv has a stronger affinity for the beginnings of lines, a pattern that deserves some attention.

J.K. Petersen

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