Black inks under examination. Part 2: a case study of Carolingian manuscripts

Abstract

With this paper, we would like to contribute to the study of black writing materials by investigating the black inks used in the manuscripts from monastic production in the eastern part of the Frankish kingdom, especially in the region of Lake Constance and in Bavaria, and dated to the period between the 8th and the 10th centuries. The corpus under study contains manuscripts with formulae, i.e. model letters and charters, besides numerous other types of texts with no clear separation between them (for example by titles).Sixty-three manuscripts have been studied with the aim of reconstructing the history of both their copying and their use. To this aim, we adopted a non-invasive approach that included near-infrared imaging and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy for on-site measurements, supported by historical and palaeographic analysis. The results obtained in this project are compared with several other archaeometric studies of contemporary manuscripts with the general aim of understanding the use of black ink in medieval manuscripts.