and when it was not customary to write on the back as well as on the face of the material. The invention of parchment with its two surfaces, recto and verso, equally available for the scribe, ensured the development of the codex. (See Manuscript.)
The animals whose skins were found appropriate for the manufacture of the new parchment were chiefly sheep, goats and calves. But in course of time there has arisen a distinction between the coarser and finer qualities of the material; and, while parchment made from ordinary skins of sheep and goats continued to bear the name, the finer kinds of manufacture produced from the more delicate skins of the calf or kid, or of still-born or newly-born calves or lambs, came to be generally known as vellum (Fr. velin). The skin codices of the early and middle ages being for the most part composed of the finer kinds of material, it has become the custom to describe them as of vellum, although in some instances it would be more correct to call the material parchment.
The ordinary modern process of preparing the skins is by washing, liming, unhairing, scraping, washing a second time, stretching evenly on a frame, scraping a second time and paring down inequalities, dusting with sifted chalk and rubbing with pumice. Somewhat similar methods, no doubt varying in details, must have been employed from the first.
The comparatively large number of ancient and medieval MSS. that have survived enables us to gather some knowledge of the varieties of the material in different periods and in different countries. We know from references in Roman authors that parchment or vellum was entering into competition with papyrus as a writing material at least as early as the 2nd century of our era (see Manuscript), though at that time it was probably not so skilfully prepared as to be a dangerous rival. But the surviving examples of the 3rd and 4th centuries show that a rapid improvement must almost at once have been effected, for the vellum of that age is generally of a thin and delicate texture, firm and crisp, with a smooth and glossy surface. Here it should be noticed that there was always, and in some periods and in some countries more than in others, a difference in colour between the surface of the skin from which the hair had been removed and the inner surface next to the flesh of the animal, the latter being whiter than the other. This difference is generally more noticeable in the older examples, those of a later period having usually been treated more thoroughly with chalk and pumice. To obviate any unsightly contrast, it was customary, when making up the quires for a volume, to lay hair-side next to hair-side and flesh-side to flesh-side, so that, at whatever place the codex was opened, the tint of the open pages should be uniform.
As a rule, the vellum of early MSS., down to and including the 6th century, is of good quality and well prepared. After this, the demand increasing, a greater amount of inferior material came into the market. The manufacture necessarily varied in different countries. In Ireland and England the vellum of the early MSS. is usually of stouter quality than that of foreign examples. In Italy and Greece and in the European countries generally bordering on the Mediterranean, a highly polished surface came into favour in the middle ages, with the ill effect that the hardness of the material resisted absorption, and that there was always a tendency for ink and paint to flake off. On the other hand, in western Europe a soft pliant vellum was in vogue for the better classes of MSS. from the 12th century onwards. In the period of the Italian Renaissance a material of extreme whiteness and purity was affected.
Examples of uterine vellum, prepared from still-born or newly-born young, are met with in choice volumes. A remarkable instance of a codex composed of this delicate substance is the Additional MS. 23935, of the 13th and 14th centuries, in the British Museum, which is made up of as many as 579 leaves, without being a volume of abnormal bulk.
In conclusion, we must briefly notice the employment of vellum of a sumptuous character to add splendour to specially choice codices of the early middle ages. The art of dyeing the material with a rich purple colour was practised both in Constantinople and in Rome; and, at least as far back as the 3rd century, MSS., generally of the Scriptures, were produced written in silver and gold on the precious stained vellum: a useless luxury, denounced by St Jerome in a well-known passage in his preface to the Book of Job. A certain number of early examples still survive, in a more or less perfect condition: such as the MS. of the Gospels in the Old Latin version at Verona, of the 4th or 5th century; the celebrated codex of Genesis in the Imperial Library at Vienna; the Rossano MS. and the Patmos MS. of the Gospels in Greek; the Gothic Gospels of Ulfilas at Upsala, and others, of the 6th century, besides a few somewhat later specimens. In the revival of learning under Charlemagne a further encouragement was given to the production of such codices; but soon afterwards the art of purple-staining appears to have been lost or abandoned. A last trace of it is found in a few isolated instances of stained vellum leaves inserted for ornament in MSS. of the period of the Renaissance.
Authorities.—Particulars of the early manufacture and use of parchment and vellum are to be found in most of the handbooks on palaeography and book-development, such as W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter (3rd ed., 1896); G. Birt, Das antike Buchwesen (1882); Sir E. M. Thompson, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography (3rd ed., 1906). See also La Lande, Art de faire le parchemin (1762); G. Peignot, Essai sur l’histoire du parchemin et du velin (1812); A. Watt, The Art of Leather Manufacture (1885). (E. M. T.)
PARCLOSE (from the O. Fr. parclore, to close thoroughly; Lat. claudere), an architectural term for a screen or railing used to enclose a chantry, tomb, chapel, &c., in a church, and for the space thus enclosed.
PARDAILLAN, the name of an old French family of Armagnac, of which several members distinguished themselves in the service of the kings of France in the 16th and 17th centuries. Antoine Arnaud de Pardaillan, maréchal de camp, served Henry IV. in Franche-Comté, Picardy and Savoy, and was created marquis de Montespan in 1612 and marquis d’Antin in 1615 under Louis XIII. His grandson Louis Henri, marquis de Montespan, was the husband of Mme de Montespan, the mistress of Louis XIV. Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin (1665–1736), legitimate son of the famous marquise, became lieutenant general of the armies of the king in 1702, governor of the Orleanais, director-general of buildings in 1708, lieutenant-general in Alsace, member of the council of regency, and minister of state. He was created duc d’Antin in 1711. The last duc d’Antin, Louis, died in 1757.
PARDESSUS, JEAN MARIE (1772–1853), French lawyer,
was born at Blois on the 11th of August 1772. He was educated by the Oratorians, and then studied law, at first under his father, a lawyer at the Présidial, who was a pupil of Robert J. Pothier. In 1796, after the Terror, he married, but his wife died at the end of three years. He was thus a widower at the age of twenty-seven, but refused to remarry and so give his children a step-mother. He wrote a Traité des servitudes (1806), which went through eight editions, then a Traité du contrat et des lettres de change (1809), which pointed him out as fitted for the chair of commercial law recently formed at the faculty of law at Paris. The emperor, however, had insisted that the position should be open to competition. Pardessus entered (1810) and was successful over two other candidates, André M. J. J. Dupin and Persil, who afterwards became brilliant lawyers. His lectures were published under the title Cours de droit commercial (4 vols., 1813–1817). In 1815 Pardessus was elected deputy for the department of Loir-et-Cher, and from 1820 to 1830 was constantly re-elected; then, however, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, and was deprived of his office. After the publication of the first volume of his Collection des lois maritimes antérieures au xviiiiᵉ siècle (1828) he was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. He continued his collection of maritime laws (4 vols., 1828–1845), and published Les Us et coutumes de la mer (2 vols., 1847). He also brought out two volumes of Merovingian diplomas (Diplomata, chartae, epistolae, leges, 1843–1840); vols. iv.–vi. of the Table chronologique des diplomes; and
