tly raised bed for the gold. "Then," he continues,
"place a little pot of glue on the fire, and when it is liquefied,
pour it into the shell of gold and wash it with it." This is to be
painted on to the gesso ground just mentioned, and when quite dry,
burnished with an agate. This recipe is more like the modern
Florentine method of gilding in illumination.

Concerning the gold itself, there seem to have been various means
employed for manufacturing substitutes for the genuine article.
A curious recipe is given in the manuscript of Jehan de Begue,
"Take bulls' brains, put them in a marble vase, and leave them for
three weeks, when you will find gold making worms. Preserve them
carefully." More quaint and superstitious is Theophilus' recipe
for making Spanish Gold; but, as this is not quotable in polite
pages, the reader must refer to the original treatise if he cares
to trace its manufacture.

Brushes made of hair are recommended by the Brussels manuscript,
with a plea for "pencils of fishes' hairs for softening." If this
does not refer to _sealskin_, it is food for conjecture!

And for the binding of these beautiful volumes, how was the leather
obtained? This is one way in which business and sport could be combined
in the monastery, Warton says, "About the year 790, Charlemagne
granted an unlimited right of hunting to the Abbot and monks of
Sithiu, for making... of the skins of the deer they killed...
covers for their books." There is no doubt that it had occurred
to artists to experiment upon human skin, and perhaps the fact
that this was an unsatisfactory texture is the chief reason why
no books were made of it. A French commentator observes: "The
skin of a man is nothing compared with the skin of a sheep....
Sheep is good for writing on both sides, but the skin of a dead
man is just about as profitable as his bones,--better bury him,
skin and bones together."

There was some difficulty in obtaining manuscripts to copy. The
Breviary was usually enclosed in a cage; rich parishioners were bribed
by many masses and prayers, to bequeath manuscripts to churches. In
old Paris, the Parchment Makers were a guild of much importance.
Often they combined their trade with tavern keeping, in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries. The Rector of the University was glad
when this occurred, for the inn keeper and parchment maker was
under his control, both being obliged to reside in the Pays Latin.
Bishops were known to exhort th