Quire formulas
English system
Under work
The codification below is based on that offered by N.R. Ker in his Catalogue, p. xxii. Anders Winroth has adapted it to reflect his practice, which is based on the descriptions found in Barbara Shailor, Catalogue.
Collation. The formulas used to show the construction of a quire are these:
(a) 18. The eight leaves forming the quire are four conjugate pairs (i.e. four sheets or bifolia), 1 and 8, 2 and 7, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5.
(b) 18 3 and 6 are singletons (half-sheets). Six of the leaves are conjugate pairs, 1 and 8, 2 and 7, and 4 and 5. Two of them, 3 and 6, are not conjugate.
(c) 18 (+1 leaf after 5). Six of the leaves are conjugate pairs, 1 and 6, 2 and 5, and 3 and 4. A seventh leaf lies between 15 and 1° and is an original part of the quire.
(d) 18 (+1 leaf inserted after 5). This differs from (c) in that the odd leaf is not an original part of the quire, but has been inserted at a later date.
(e) 18 wants 2. Formally this quire is identical with (c), but a gap in the text or some other evidence shows that the odd leaf, 17, was once paired with—but may not have been actually conjugate with—a leaf now missing after 1‘.
(f) 18 wants 8, probably blank. The scribe finished writing his text on or before the seventh leaf. The eighth leaf of the quire, now missing, was presumably blank. Formally the collation 1+-1 before 1 is equally possible, but it seems unlikely that a scribe would deliberately begin his quire with a half-sheet. More probably he, or another scribe, or a binder, or a later owner or librarian in need of parchment removed the blank leaf at the end.
(g) 1 five. The quire consists of five leaves, but its construction is doubtful.
Literature
Franz M. Bishoff, Methoden der Lagenbeschreibung, Scriptorium 46 (1992), p. 3-27. N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford 1957). Barbara Shailor, Catalogue of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (Binghamton, N.Y., 1984-2004).
