In Ancient Babylon they wrote on clay tablets, in Egypt - on papyrus, in Europe - on parchment, and in Ancient Rus'- on birch bark. Birch bark was the main material for writing on our lands long before parchment and paper were brought to us.
According to the main version, the appearance of birch bark letters dates back to the period of the 11th-15th centuries, but the discoverer of Novgorod letters A.V. Artsikhovsky and many of his colleagues believe that the first letters were already in the 9th-10th centuries.
Birch bark has been used as a material for writing in Ancient Rus' since ancient times. Joseph Volotsky wrote that in the monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh “the books themselves are not written on charters, but on birch bark.” Many (though rather late) documents and even entire books (mostly Old Believers) written on layered birch bark have survived to this day.
The place where birch bark letters were discovered was Velikiy Novgorod. The preservation of these ancient finds was facilitated by favorable natural conditions and the characteristics of the local soil.
In the 1930s in Veliky Novgorod there were archaeological excavations, the expedition was headed by A.V. Artsikhovsky. Then the first cut sheets of birch bark and writing instruments were found. It was not possible to make more serious discoveries during that period, since the Great Patriotic War. Work continued in the late 40s of the 20th century.
A.V. Artsikhovsky
On July 26, 1951, birch bark document No. 1 was found at one of the excavations. It contained a list of feudal duties in favor of three residents of the city. This letter confirmed the hypothesis of historians about the possibility of such finds. Subsequently, the events of July 26 became the reason for the approval of the annual holiday celebrated in Novgorod - the Day of the Birch Bark Letter. The discoveries did not end there. That same year, archaeologists found nine more birch bark documents.
Subsequently, the discovery of birch bark letters became commonplace. The first letters were found in Smolensk in 1952, in Pskov - in 1958, in Vitebsk - in 1959. The first find in Staraya Russa appeared in 1966, in Tver - in 1983. In Moscow, the first birch bark letter was discovered only in 1988, when excavations were carried out on Red Square.
An archaeological expedition to Veliky Novgorod is already a tradition. Every year since 1951, archaeologists open their seasons. Unfortunately, the number of letters found in different years, varies greatly. There were seasons when scientists found several hundred specimens, and there were also zero. Nevertheless, today more than 1000 birch bark letters have already been found.
At the end of 2017, the total number of letters found is distributed as follows:
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Velikiy Novgorod |
1102 certificates and 1 birch bark certificate-icon |
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Staraya Russa |
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Smolensk |
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|
Zvenigorod Galitsky (Ukraine) |
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|
Mstislavl (Belarus) |
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Vitebsk (Belarus) |
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Old Ryazan |
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Birch bark became widespread as a writing material at the beginning of the 11th century and was used until the middle of the 15th century. With the spread of paper use of this material for writing came to naught. Paper was cheaper, and writing on birch bark was no longer prestigious. Therefore, the letters discovered by archaeologists are not documents stored in archives, but thrown out and falling into the ground due to their uselessness.
When writing letters, ink was very rarely used, since it was very unstable, and the authors simply scratched letters on birch bark that were clearly legible.
Most of the documents found are everyday private letters on the topic of debt collection, trade, etc. There are also drafts of official acts on birch bark: these are wills, receipts, bills of sale, and court records.
Church texts (prayers), school jokes, conspiracies, and riddles were also found. In 1956, archaeologists discovered the educational notes of the Novgorod boy Onfim, which later became widely known.
For the most part, the letters are laconic and pragmatic. They only concentrate important information, and everything that is already known to the addressee is not mentioned.
The nature of birch bark letters - messages from humble people - is clear evidence of the spread of literacy among the population of Ancient Rus'. The townspeople learned the alphabet from childhood, wrote their own letters, and women also knew how to read and write. The fact that family correspondence was widely represented in Novgorod indicates the high position of a woman who sent orders to her husband and independently entered into financial relations.
The significance of the found birch bark letters is enormous both for study national history, and for Russian linguistics. They are the most important source for studying Everyday life our ancestors, the development of trade, political and social life of Ancient Rus'.
Until 1951, there was a strong opinion that only selected social strata received education in Rus'. This myth was dispelled by the discovery of archaeologists, which occurred on July 26, 1951 in Novgorod. Experts discovered a birch bark letter preserved from the 14th century, or rather a scroll of birch bark, which could easily be mistaken for a fishing float, with words scratched on it.
An ancient note, which listed the villages that paid taxes to some Roma, was the first to dispel the opinion that the population of Rus' was universally illiterate. Soon, in Novgorod and other cities, archaeologists began to find more and more new records confirming that merchants, artisans, and peasants knew how to write. AiF.ru tells what our ancestors thought and wrote about.
The first birch bark letter. It is highly fragmented, but consists of long and completely standard phrases: “So much manure came from such and such a village,” so it is easily restored. Photo: RIA Novosti
Unlike most traditional monuments of the 11th-15th centuries, people wrote birch bark letters in simple language, because the addressee of the message was most often members of their own family, neighbors or business partners. They resorted to writing on birch bark in case of immediate need, so most often household orders and everyday requests are found on birch bark. For example, a document from the 14th century known as No. 43 contains the most common request to send a servant and a shirt with him:
“From Boris to Nastasya. When this letter arrives, send me a man on a stallion, because I have a lot to do here. Yes, send a shirt - I forgot my shirt.”
Sometimes complaints and threats can be found in monuments found by archaeologists. For example, a birch bark letter from the 12th century known as No. 155 turned out to be a note, the author of which demands compensation for the damage caused to him in the amount of 12 hryvnia:
“From Polochka (or: Polochka) to... [After you (?)] took the girl from Domaslav, Domaslav took 12 hryvnia from me. 12 hryvnia arrived. If you don’t send it, then I will stand (meaning: with you to the court) before the prince and the bishop; then prepare for a greater loss.”
Birch bark document No. 155. Source: Public Domain
With the help of birch bark letters we can learn more about the daily life of our ancestors. For example, charter No. 109 of the 12th century is dedicated to the incident with the purchase of a stolen slave by a warrior:
“Certificate from Zhiznomir to Mikula. You bought a slave in Pskov, and the princess grabbed me for it (implied: convicting me of theft). And then the squad vouched for me. So send a letter to that husband if he has a slave. But I want to, having bought horses and mounted the prince’s husband, [go] to confrontation. And you, if you haven’t taken that money [yet], don’t take anything from him.”
Sometimes notes found by archaeologists contain extremely short and simple text, similar to a modern SMS message (No. 1073): “ From Gavrila to Kondrat. Come here”, - and sometimes they look like advertisements. For example, letter No. 876 contains a warning that repair work will take place on the square in the coming days.
Certificate No. 109. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
“From Mikita to Anna. Marry me - I want you, and you want me; and Ignat Moiseev is a witness to this.”
The most amazing thing about this note is that Mikita directly addresses the bride herself, and not her parents, as was customary. One can only guess about the reasons for such an act. Another interesting text has been preserved from the 12th century, in which an upset lady scolds her chosen one (No. 752):
“[I sent (?)] to you three times. What kind of evil do you have against me that this week (or: this Sunday) you did not come to me? And I treated you like a brother! Did I really offend you by sending [to you]? But I see you don’t like it. If you were interested, would you break out from under [human] eyes and rush...? Even if I offended you through my foolishness, if you start to mock me, then God and my badness (that is, me) will judge [you].
It turns out that in Ancient Rus' the relationship between spouses was somewhat similar to modern families. So, for example, in letter No. 931, Semyon’s wife asks to suspend a certain conflict until her return. She’ll come and figure it out herself:
“An order to Semyon from his wife. You would simply calm [everyone] down and wait for me. And I’ll hit you with my forehead.”
Archaeologists have also found fragments love plot, possibly included in the draft of a love letter (No. 521): “So let your heart and your body and your soul burn [with passion] for me and for my body and for my face.” And even a note from a sister to her brother, in which she reports that her husband brought home his mistress, and they got drunk and beat her half to death. In the same note, the sister asks her brother to come quickly and intercede for her.
Birch bark document No. 497 (second half of the 14th century). Gavrila Postnya invites her son-in-law Gregory and sister Ulita to visit Novgorod.
On this day, everyone gathers at the monument erected to a simple Novgorod woman, Nina Akulova. Students of history departments of Novgorod State University and other universities in the country, schoolchildren, and Novgorod residents come different professions, who are regular participants in archaeological seasons.
But this holiday is dear not only to archaeologists. It is increasingly noted by everyone who is in one way or another connected with this wonderful and irreplaceable natural material.
Findings at the Nerevsky archaeological site indicate not only the existence of writing. Birch bark has long been used for a wide variety of purposes. Among the latest finds by archaeologists on the territory of Novgorod, pieces of birch bark with painting, embossing and figured carving dating back to the 11th - 14th centuries were also found.
Leonid Dzhepko, CC BY-SA 3.0These findings indicate that art products made of birch bark have been common in the everyday life of the Russian people since very ancient times. However, the legends, written sources and things that have reached us make it possible to form a far from complete picture of how this unique art developed.
Material from excavations on Beloozero, stored in the Vologda Museum of Local Lore, indicates the existence of birch bark embossing in XII-XIII centuries. It can be assumed that from the Novgorod lands, through the Rostov-Suzdal lands, for a number of historical reasons, Shemogod birch bark carving turned into a craft.
The Vologda Museum houses an illustrated manuscript from the late 18th century, written in the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery. The illustrations of this most curious document are a combination of iconographic and folklore motifs, with a clear predominance of the latter.
Secretary of Turabey, CC BY-SA 3.0 Three leaves of the manuscript have images of birch bark objects decorated with carvings and embossing. On one of them is Death with a scythe, behind her shoulders is a box of arrows. The birch bark box, judging by the drawing, is decorated with embossing.
Writing on birch bark letters is a special skill that can perhaps be considered a craft.
Of course you need to know how to read and write, but this is not enough. Letters were squeezed out (scratched) on birch bark with the tip of a metal or bone tool specially designed for this purpose - a pen (stylus). Only a few charters are written in ink.
B222, CC BY-SA 3.0 The writings were found regularly in archaeological excavations, but it was not clear why they were back side made in the form of a spatula. The answer was soon found: archaeologists began to find in excavations well-preserved boards with a depression filled with wax - tsera, which also served for teaching literacy.
The wax was leveled with a spatula and letters were written on it.
The oldest Russian book, the Psalter of the 11th century (c. 1010, more than half a century older than the Ostromir Gospel), found in July 2000, was just that. A book of three 20x16 cm tablets filled with wax carried the texts of the three Psalms of David.
The existence of birch bark writing in Rus' was known even before the discovery of letters by archaeologists. At the monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh “the books themselves are not written on charters, but on berestakh” (Joseph Volotsky).
Dmitry Nikishin, CC BY-SA 3.0 The place where birch bark letters were first discovered medieval Rus', became Veliky Novgorod. The Novgorod archaeological expedition, working since the 1930s under the leadership of A.V. Artsikhovsky, repeatedly found cut sheets of birch bark.
However, the Great Patriotic War (during which Novgorod was occupied by the Germans) interrupted the work of archaeologists, and they resumed only in the late 1940s.
On July 26, 1951, birch bark letter No. 1 was discovered at the Nerevsky excavation site. It contained a list of feudal duties - “pozem” and “gift”, in favor of three landowners: Thomas, Iev and a third, who may have been called Timofey.
unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0 This certificate was found by Novgorod resident Nina Akulova, who came to the excavation site to work part-time during her maternity leave. Noticing letters on a dirty birch bark scroll, she called the head of the site, Gaida Avdusina.
Having realized what was going on, she was speechless. Artsikhovsky, who ran up, was also unable to say anything for several minutes, and then exclaimed: “Prize - one hundred rubles! I’ve been waiting for this find for twenty years!”
The same archaeological season brought 9 more birch bark documents, published only in 1953. At first, the discovery of birch bark letters did not receive proper coverage in the press, which was due to ideological control in Soviet science.
Mitrius, CC BY-SA 3.0 The discovery showed that, contrary to fears, ink was almost never used when writing letters: only three such letters out of more than a thousand were found during excavations. The text was simply scratched into the bark and was easily read.
During the excavations, empty sheets of birch bark were also found - blanks for writing, showing the possibility of finding birch bark letters with text in the future.
Since 1951, birch bark documents have been discovered by archaeological expeditions in Novgorod, and then in a number of other ancient Russian cities.
The largest expedition - the Novgorod one - works annually, but the number of letters in different seasons varies greatly - from more than a hundred to zero, depending on what layers are excavated.
Most birch bark letters are private letters of a business nature. Closely related to this category are debt lists, which could serve not only as records for oneself, but also as orders to “take so much from such and such” and collective petitions of peasants to the feudal lord (XIV-XV centuries).
In addition, there are drafts of official acts on birch bark: wills, receipts, bills of sale, court records, etc.
The following types of birch bark letters are relatively rare, but are of particular interest: church texts (prayers, lists of commemorations, orders for icons, teachings), literary and folklore works (spells, school jokes, riddles, instructions on household), notes of an educational nature (alphabet books, warehouses, school exercises, children's drawings and scribbles). The educational notes and drawings of the Novgorod boy Onfim, discovered in 1956, became extremely famous.
The everyday and personal nature of many birch bark letters from Veliky Novgorod, for example, love letters from humble young people or household notes from wife to husband, indicate a high prevalence of literacy among the population.
Birch bark certificates
Wrote
Letters and records on birch bark are monuments of writing of Ancient Rus' of the 11th-15th centuries. Birch bark documents are of primary interest as sources on the history of society and the daily life of medieval people, as well as on the history of East Slavic languages. Birch bark writing is also known to a number of other cultures of the world.
Museums and archives have preserved many late, mainly Old Believer documents, even entire books written on specially processed (layered) birch bark (XVII-XIX centuries). On the banks of the Volga near Saratov, peasants, while digging a silo, in 1930 found a birch bark Golden Horde document from the 14th century. All these manuscripts are written in ink.
Wrote is a sharpened metal or bone rod known as an instrument for writing on wax. However, before the discovery of birch bark letters, the version that this was what she wrote was not prevalent, and they were often described as nails, hairpins or “unknown objects.”
The oldest writing styluses in Novgorod come from layers of 953-989. Even then, Artsikhovsky had a hypothesis about the possibility of finding letters scratched on birch bark.
Nina Fedorovna Akulova is a resident of Veliky Novgorod. On July 26, 1951, at the Nerevsky archaeological site in Novgorod, in layers of the 14th-15th centuries, she was the first to find a birch bark letter.
This finding became very important for all future research. Nina Fedorovna’s family put forward an initiative to immortalize this event in a monument. The initiative was supported by Novgorod residents.
On the monument to Nina Akulova there is an image of the very birch bark letter No. 1 that glorified Novgorod for centuries. In 13 lines on Old Slavonic language The villages from which taxes were paid in favor of a certain Thomas were listed. This letter from the distant past became a sensation for historians in the late 50s of the last century.
Every year everyone gathers at this monument and this is where the celebration of Birch Bark Day begins.
Many documents were discovered during archaeological monitoring of earthworks- construction, laying communications, and also found simply by chance.
Among the random finds, in particular, is letter No. 463, found by a student of the Novgorod Pedagogical Institute in the village of Pankovka in a heap of waste soil removed from excavations, which was supposed to be used for landscaping a local park, and a small fragment No. 612, found by Novgorod resident Chelnokov at his home in flower pot when transplanting flowers.
There are suggestions that birch bark was viewed as an ephemeral, low-prestige material for writing, unsuitable for long-term storage.
It was used mainly as material for private correspondence and personal notes, and more important letters and official documents were written, as a rule, on parchment; only their drafts were trusted with birch bark.
For example, in letter No. 831, which is a draft complaint to an official, there is a direct instruction to rewrite it on parchment and only then send it to the addressee.
Last year, 2010, turned out to be not just a fruitful year, but a significant one: scientists discovered the 1000th and 1001st birch bark writing.
On July 26, 1951, Nina Akulova, a furniture factory worker, came to the Nerevsky excavation site to work part-time while on maternity leave. And wow, she was immediately lucky. “When we dug up the ancient pavement and began to clear it, I found birch bark. I unfolded it and looked - there was something written on it. I cleaned it and took it to the scientists,” the woman recalled.
Later on Dmitrovskaya Street (in the old days it was called Kholopya) a memorial was erected sign, stating that it was here that the first birch bark letter in the history of Russia was found.
WITH light hand Shark finds poured in like a cornucopia. In 1951 alone, nine letters were found. Before that, there was an opinion among historians that the population of the ancient Russian principalities did not know how to read and write. It never occurred to anyone that in the Middle Ages, someone other than princes and the monastic class could clearly and clearly express their thoughts on “paper”; this is not writing a valentine’s SMS. According to everyone, the only islands of light among the sea of darkness and ignorance were monasteries, where monks copied sacred texts and kept chronicles. And suddenly such a surprise! Messages on birch bark were written by everyone - both rich and poor. True, they sometimes wrote as they heard, but they wrote! The letters talked about everything - about feudal duties, about disputes between peasants, about slaves’ complaints to their masters. Sometimes the messages were liberally flavored with selected Russian obscenities. By the way, it was previously believed that it was brought to Rus' by the Tatar-Mongols, but no: the mat turned out to be an original Russian invention, like a bathhouse or a samovar.
Why was birch bark held in such esteem in Veliky Novgorod? The reason is the same notorious economic factor. Parchment or paper, which appeared in Russia only under Ivan the Terrible, cost big money, and birch bark - a penny, since the forests around Novgorod were immeasurable. In addition, birch bark perfectly preserved texts, since it was not afraid of moisture. So Veliky Novgorod, located in a very damp place with its high groundwater It’s not that he didn’t destroy, but rather preserved the messages in the birch bark. Of course, the Novgorodians wrote important documents, such as land ownership rights and military reports, on parchment, sealing them with official seals. But drafts were often sketched on birch bark, as well as everyday notes and love letters. After reading the letters, they were torn in half along the text, cut with a knife, or simply thrown away. They wrote on birch bark not with ink, but with a pointed rod (writing), scratching the letters deeply. Thanks to this, today we have a unique opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the contents of ancient letters.
So, what did the Slavs write to each other about? Here is a birch bark letter dated approximately 1240-1260: “Bow from Danil to brother Ignat. Brother, take care of me: I walk around naked - neither a cloak nor anything else! ...But the lady did not grant me anything. Have mercy, brother, give me a place in the backyard: there is nothing to feed on. I bow to you."
So let your heart, and your body, and your soul burn with passion for me, and for my body, and for my face.
Needless to say, everyone had their own problems. One’s table was laden with food, and the other’s had wind blowing through his pockets.
In birch bark notes, people often asked for help. Here is a letter written at the height of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus'. What is so urgent that a simple Novgorodian tells his wife? “Bow from Peter to Marya. I mowed the meadow, and the Ozerichs (residents of the village of Ozera) took the hay from me..."
It would seem that wife Marya had to run throughout the village and call on her fellow villagers for help. Moreover, in those days fist rights reigned. But no. Peter, obviously well acquainted with legal subtleties, asks his wife: “... Make a copy of the deed of sale and come here so that it is clear where the border of my mowing lies.”
This phrase alone says a lot. Firstly, a literate peasant has an equally literate wife. Secondly, his offenders are also literate people, otherwise how could they familiarize themselves with the document? Thirdly, economic disputes in Rus' were resolved not by massacres, but in a completely civilized manner. So much for the “dark ages”...
It is believed that in the past a woman, and especially in Rus', was a downtrodden, dark and dependent creature. No matter how it is! A woman in Novgorod was a free equal partner. The wife often sent “orders” to her husband and conducted financial affairs. Moreover, the ladies chose their own husbands and did not hesitate to pursue the objects of their passion. Don't believe me? Read: “I sent to you three times. What kind of evil do you have against me that you didn’t come to me this week? And I treated you like a brother! Did I really offend you by sending you? But I see you don’t like it. If you cared, you would have escaped from under human eyes and rushed... do you want me to leave you? Even if I offended you due to my lack of understanding, if you start to mock me, then let God and I judge you.”
Alas, the object of adoration was indifferent to the author of the message. After reading it, the man, in his anger, cut it with a knife, tied the pieces into a bundle and threw them into a pile of manure. But the women were in no hurry to give up - they resorted to conspiracies. “So let your heart, and your body, and your soul burn with passion for me, and for my body, and for my face...” says another message. It’s a pity, it is not known whether witchcraft helped a woman who had lost her head from love...
It's good to be a person of the information age! But in the old days everything was a little more complicated...
For example, in Ancient Rus', there were no standard software text typefaces and you had to write by hand. Painstakingly writing out each letter.
For writing, from the 9th century, they used the usual Cyrillic alphabet for us, although even before that, for about a century, primitive hieroglyphic writing existed in Rus' - “features and cuts”. To master the alphabet and practice handwriting, students of princely and family schools used tsera and wrote.
Ceras are small wooden planks, the size of an ordinary school notebook, with a convex border, filled flush with it with wax. On the church, as on a modern one chalkboard, it was possible to scratch out small texts. Then erase them and write something again.
The writings were small bone, wood or metal rods 15-18 centimeters long and as thick as a modern pencil. The working end of the writing was pointed, and the opposite end was most often artistically decorated.
If you, as a resident of Ancient Rus', needed to write a letter, take a list of groceries with you to the market, leave a receipt for money, or compose a hiking prayer book, you would look around in search of birch. It was its bark, otherwise birch bark, that the Russians used as cheap writing material for everyday needs.
They wrote on birch bark, as on ceras, with ordinary pointed writing, simply scratching required text. Extremely rarely, ink could be used for particularly important letters or drafts of official documents.
If you want to feel like a Russian scribe from the early 11th century, you should use a knitting needle and cut strips of birch bark. You can also melt a candle and pour wax on a small wooden board.
The result will be something like cera.
Since the 14th century, in remote and poor areas, cheap birch bark replaced expensive parchment in books. Many works of the northern Old Believer communities have come down to us in the form of birch bark books.
Birch bark books were made quite simply: the book was written on birch bark pages pre-selected to size; then blank sheets of cover were attached to them; then, on one side, holes were punched in the covered pages with an awl, through which a leather cord was passed and thus the book was held together. Chronicles, official charters, laws and literary works
They were written exclusively in ink and on a much more expensive material - parchment.
This material was invented in the 2nd century BC in Asia Minor in the city of Pergamon and was a specially tanned calfskin.
Why were books so expensive in ancient times? Because writing just one book required a lot of valuable raw materials - calf skins (to make a Bible close in format to modern A4, 150-180 skins were required) and the production of parchment itself also required a lot of labor!
Each skin of future parchment had to be washed and all the hard lint removed from it. Then it was soaked in lime mortar for a week. After this soaking, the rest of the hair fell out of the skin.
The still wet skin was pulled over wooden frame, where they dried and flayed with semicircular knives - that is, they cleaned with inside the skins were soft fiber, after which chalk was also rubbed into it and smoothed with pumice.
The parchment was then bleached by rubbing flour and milk into it and cut into sheets of the required size.
Parchment was a very good writing material: you could write on it on both sides; it was very light and durable and did not allow the ink to bleed, thanks to the rubbed chalk; in addition, the parchment could be used several times by scraping upper layer with previously written text.
In Byzantium and Europe, there were technologies for dyeing parchment in purple, walnut, peach and other colors, as well as for making gold and silver ink, which was used for especially valuable books. But in Rus' they were not used.
Now - ink! European inks were often quite expensive and difficult to produce. But in Rus', most often they made do with fairly cheap and accessible recipes.
The basis for most inks was gum (the resin of some types of acacia or cherry). Depending on what substances dissolved in the gum, the ink acquired one color or another.
Black ink was made from gum and soot (“smoked ink”). Black ink could also be prepared by boiling “ink nuts”—painful growths on oak leaves—in gum. By adding brown iron, rust or iron sulfate to the gum, brown ink was obtained. Blue ink was obtained by combining gum and copper sulfate, red ink from gum and cinnabar (mercury sulfide, a reddish mineral found everywhere in nature along with other metamorphic rocks).
There were also one-component inks that did not even require gum. They were made from certain plants. From blueberries - purple ink, from buckthorn - purple, from the roots of knotweed or elderberries - blue, and from its leaves - green.
Depending on its composition, the ink was either prepared in small quantities shortly before use, or was stored in ceramic or wooden sealed containers. Before use, the ink was diluted with water. A small amount of ink was poured into a special vessel - an inkwell, which was shaped so as to be stable on the table, and it was convenient to dip a pen into it.
They wrote on parchment with sharpened quills, usually goose quills, since they were the most durable and held their sharpness for a long time. Feathers from the left wing were predominantly used because they fit better into right hand(accordingly, left-handed people used feathers from the right wing of the bird). Part of the beard was removed from the tip of the feathers to improve grip. Then the feathers were degreased, boiled in alkali and hardened in hot sand and sharpened (“repaired”) with a knife (hence the modern folding knife received the name “penknife”). To write capital letters you could 
use thin brushes.
Scribes with the most beautiful handwriting were allowed to write books. The capital letters were intricately written in red cinnabar ink (hence the “red line”). Headings were written in script - a special decorative style of letters. Almost every page of the book was decorated with a colored drawing - a miniature. Even smaller drawings – “wildflowers” – were often drawn in the margins. An ornament was placed along the edges of the sheet in the form of a frame. The most common of the ornaments in Rus' was “Old Byzantine”, also known as “geometric”.
The finished pages were sewn into small notebooks, which were then collected in a plank binding, usually covered with leather or velvet, which could contain an embossed or embroidered design or ornament.
Often, for the sake of greater safety, the corners of the binding were bound with metal, and especially valuable and sacred books usually had a solid metal frame and metal fasteners, with which the edges of the binding were rigidly fixed to each other so that the book did not lose its shape. The frame could be made of gold or silver and richly decorated with gems and bas-reliefs.
Since handwritten books themselves, as well as the services of a copyist, were extremely expensive, only the most important, general cultural values were recorded in them. Pulp novels, detective stories and low-grade fiction were absent as a class. There were also no humorous or utopian works to be found among the books of that time.
First of all, religious and ideological works were recorded: the Gospels, the epistles of the apostles, the lives of the saints, the Psalms and other spiritual poetry, rites of worship, the works of Hellenistic and Christian philosophers and theologians, etc.
In the second - various works and information of great cultural or scientific significance: stories and tales, teachings, folk epics, epics, songs, poems, proverbs and sayings. Myths, comedies and tragedies of antiquity, codes of laws and conciliar definitions of faith, and historical chronologies of events were often written down. There were also scientific works on mathematics, medicine, chemistry, geography, astronomy, navigation, home economics, biology and other disciplines.
The information was selected very selectively. Often, for the sake of a new text, which was considered more important, one of the ancient works was scraped from the parchment, since there were not enough new books. The language, reflecting the realities of the time, was much more capacious and accurate than it is now. Each word could carry a double or even triple meaning.
