“Making them was laborious because there was no paper. They had to use vellum — goatskin, sheepskin, pigskin — and they had quills to write on vellum. The best quills were made with the tail feathers of geese.”
Even in handwritten manuscripts, the margins are justified — a function a computer’s Word programme now takes care of with the click of a key.
“They ruled their margins,” says Anaru.
“You can see in the manuscripts the lines they ruled. These old people were tough and well-disciplined. They were trained very young and did it all their lives.”
Colour was rare, and for illuminated manuscripts, hand-written books with painted decoration, pigments had to be imported from Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Lapis lazuli with its intense blue pigment, came from Afghanistan.
Natural pigments introduced by the Egyptians included malachite, a deep green mineral; cinnabar, a bright red mineral that, when crushed, provides an opaque, bright red pigment; and orpiment, a bright, golden-yellow arsenic sulphide, imported from Syria.
Because colour pigment was so rare, most people had access to it only as artwork in cathedrals and seeing rich people’s clothing, says Anaru’s partner Sally August, a museum development adviser.
Among items in the The Word - Kupu exhibition will be a leaf from an illustrated manuscript, written in Latin, containing the text of Psalm 108 and embellished in coloured inks and gold produced in France in the 14th century.
By the mid-15th century, though, the existing method of book production in Europe was revolutionised.
Goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg’s ground-breaking printing press, with its movable type, could produce up to 3600 pages per workday, compared to 40 by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying.
The Gutenberg press, modelled on the design of existing screw presses (a type of machine press in which the ram is driven up and down by a screw), was a marked improvement on the handwritten manuscript.
“The Gutenberg press brought printed books into the hands of the people, as the cost of book printing dropped,” says Sally.
“Universities got their own printers but before that they had handwritten manuscripts. A lot of students would handwrite their own books.”
Paper began to supplant vellum after it was introduced into Europe in the 15th century, says Anaru.
“The Arabs had paper and introduced it to Spain, so by the time the printing press was invented paper was accessible.
“Printing came in the middle of the Renaissance.
“It all fits together like a jig-saw. Academics had more opportunities to challenge ideas.
“I have books that were illegal back then. If you were caught with them you’d be burned with them. It was really cruel.
“The Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment put a stop to that.”
Martin Luther is believed to have posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences, propositions for debate, written in Latin, on the door of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church), Wittenberg, in 1517. This sparked the Protestant Reformation, says Anaru.
The theses displayed Luther’s unhappiness with the Church’s sale of indulgences — granting full or partial remission of the punishment of sin — and this eventually gave birth to Protestantism.
“He produced a version of the Bible that’s still used in Germany today.”
Anaru, who comes from a Ngati Rangitihi, Ngai Tuhoe, Ngapuhi, Ngati Ruanui and Celtic background, spent his teen years and 20s in libraries. These included the Dunedin Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library.
“They had books that went back nearly 1000 years. I got to handle those books.
“I began collecting old books when I was about 10.”
Along with books and manuscripts he began to collect pre-European Maori and Pacific material more than 30 years ago, and has even made his own traditional Maori tools.
To learn more in his field of interest he researched museum and private collections, and studied at Te Wananga o Te Awanuiarangi in Whakatane. After completing a certificate in 1993, he completed a degree in Maori studies in 1996.
He also taught himself Latin.
“We were taught to think. That’s watered down now.”
There is no television in the Rondon-August household. Anaru does not use the internet, he doesn’t even use a computer.
“Social media is boring,” he says.
“I like to handle a physical book or paper. You don’t have to plug it in.
“When Sally and I met I was living without electricity.
“I was living like it was 1800.”
Among selections from his collection of texts and artefacts that will feature in The Word – Te Kupu are illuminated manuscripts, historical newspapers, printed books, a book press, and printing blocks. The texts are in several languages that include Latin, Greek, Arabic, Italian, French, English, and te reo Maori. They cover various topics from religion to science and have been made from various natural materials — animal skins, parts of trees, minerals and plants.
“One point of the exhibition is to give people a taste of what they would find in bigger towns and cities,” says Anaru.
Libraries and archives are valuable for society because they are accessible, he says. He cites The Poverty Bay Herald’s 1931 account of the destructive Hawke’s Bay earthquake.
“That’s very poignant since it was published in the aftermath. The Poverty Bay Herald published an account of the earthquake because Napier’s Daily Telegraph was devastated by the earthquake and out of commission.
The exhibition will include an issue of that newspaper.
“That proves the value of an archive, the value of records.
“If you preserve books, texts and manuscripts in libraries and personal archives there is so much that can be learned from them.
“We have to be conscious about preserving our histories and keeping our repositories of knowledge.”
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