These Hairy Medieval Books Turned Out To Be Wrapped In Seal Skin

Emily Chan |Apr 21, 2025 Follow UsIn medieval Europe, scribes often wrapped their books in the hairy hides of animals like deer or boar to act as protective coverings. But in some cases, they used sealskin, much to the surprise of historians. When researchers discovered a set of 12th- and 13th-century manuscripts from northeastern France, they were puzzled because their covers did not appear to be made of the typical boar or deer skin. The hair follicles looked off. So, a team of scientists decided to conduct some investigations. They took small samples from the covers and used techniques like mass spectrometry and DNA analysis to figure out which animals they were made from. They were amazed to find that the books had been bound in the skins of harp seals, harbor seals, and bearded seals. The marine mammals came from Scotland, Denmark, Scandinavia, and Greenland or Iceland. “I was like, ‘That’s not possible. There must be some mistake,” said Élodie Lévêque, the lead author of the stud...