San Francisco Center for the Book

The fashion for attaching a devotional book to a girdle dates back to the twelfth century and flourished for several hundred years in England and Scotland, as well as Germany and the Netherlands.

Belts, or girdles, were worn by clerics in the middle-ages around the outside of their robes as a sign of office. Girdle books were small volumes kept about the person for frequent consultation, and were worn by monks, priests and lay people. They denoted piety, importance of office, and wealth.

Our girdle book will be made of quires of paper with vellum endsheets, sewn with linen thread onto alum tawed supports. The book has oak boards which are chamfered into a gentle curve to render them more tactile and ergonomic for handling. The alum tawed lacing slips will then travel along channels through the boards and be secured in place by wooden pegs.

The textblock will be trimmed after the boards are attached, using a drawknife. This now unusual technique of trimming was common to all bookbinding before the invention of the plough in the sixteenth century.

The book has a primary covering of reverse calfskin — the suede side providing the grip necessary to hold the outer cover, or chemise, in place. This secondary covering is made from alum tawed leather, and has simply stitched pockets into which the boards are inserted. Further strips of alum tawed leather are woven into a Turk’s Head knot around the tail of the chemise. Finally, a strap-and-pin closure secures the book within its bindings.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
Experience binding books in / paring leather.

Materials to bring:

Don’t worry if you don’t own everything listed, you shouldn’t go out buying unnecessarily, we can share. Bring if it is convenient.

- A small pair of pliers
- Metal square (Engineer's L-shaped square)
- Hand operated drill and small bits, 1mm - 3mm
- Woodworker's Plane (small Block Plane that can be used one-handed)
- Needle Awl
- Bone folders
- Scalpel handle and a few blades, straight and curved
- Sanding block and sandpaper, various grits
- G-Clamps
- Paste brush
- Paring machine (Scharf-fix or Brockman)
- Paring knife and strop
- A sharp quarter-inch or 3-6mm chisel

About the Instructor:
Michael Burke (he/him) studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in England, where he teaches bookbinding as well at events across the UK. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings and received his Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London in 2011.

Michael is a co-founder of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.