Lexicon Browse - S
Sacramentary - A service book containing the prayers recited by the celebrant during high Mass (collect, secret, postcommunion, and the canon of the mass).Saints' lives - Narratives of the lives (vitae) of the saints which formed a popular genre from the early Middle Ages on.Sammelband - A volume that has been compiled from more than one bibliographically distinctive unit.Sanctorale - The celebration of saints' feasts, except for those falling between December 24 and January 13, also known as the Proper of Saints. The term sanctorale also refers to the section of a liturgical book containing the texts for those celebrations.Sap green - A green pigment used in ink.Sarum - Relating to the Roman rite particular to Salisbury, which was used in England, Wales, and Ireland before the sixteenth-century Reformation.Scatter border - A fifteenth-century style of border in which accurately depicted items such as flowers and insects are scattered across its surface, which is often gilded.School book - A book made for use in teaching within an ecclesiastical or university context.Scribal corruption; also Scribal error - A general term for inconsistencies in the transmission of text caused by various errors made in copying over time.Scribe - A person engaged in the physical writing of books or documents.Script - The handwriting used in manuscripts.Scriptio continua - "Continuous writing" – writing that is completely without spaces between words, used in antiquity and late antiquity.Scriptorium - A writing room.Scriptura continua - see Scriptio continuaScroll - A book made from a roll of papyrus or parchment.Scudding - The preparation of vellum or parchment by removing hair with a special tool.Secundo folio - The opening words of the second folio of a manuscript.Semi-uncial - see Half-uncialSequentiary - A book (or portion of a Gradual or Troper) containing sequences (extended melodies) sung by a soloist between the alleluia and the Gospel lesson at Mass.Serif - The finishing mark or stroke on a letter that protrudes beyond the end of the main stroke.Service book - A book used in the performance of the Christian liturgy.Sewing - The process of attaching leaves into gatherings, then connecting the gatherings together, in preparation for binding the codex.Sewing frame - A frame used by binders to hold together the gatherings in a book during the sewing process.Sewing stations - The points in the gutter where the sewing needle travels through the fold to the outer edge of the spine in order to attach the quire to the cords or to another quire.Sewing supports - (Sewing on Supports) The process of linking the quires of a manuscript into book form by sewing them on to cords.Sexternion - Six sheets in a gathering to form twelve leaves.Sgraffito - Writing produced by scratching through a top layer of paint to reveal the underlying pigment or writing surface.Shagreen - see Goatskin (Shagreen)Sheepskin - A type of parchment made from the skins of sheep.Sheet - The full piece of paper or parchment before it has been folded, trimmed and gathered into quires.Shelfmark - A mark, often incorporating numbers, which indicates a book's location within a library.Shoulder - The place where one of the boards of a book joins the spine.Showthrough - A decoration or text that can be seen from the other side of a leaf.Siglum - A letter or short set of letters to designate a particular manuscript; assigned by the editor.Signature - The letters written or printed in the tail margin of the first leaf (at least) of each gathering or section of a book, used to guide the binder when assembling the gatherings.Signe-de-renvoi - A symbol indicating the location for a correction.Silver leaf - A type of manuscript decoration that applies thin sheets of silver to the surface of the support.Single-compartment - In paleography, a Caroline "A" with one closed compartment.Singleton - A single folio that has lost its mate (the other half of the bifolium) or that originally was designed to be sewn into a book as a single sheet.Sizing - The treatment of paper to prepare it for use.Southern Textualis - see RotundaSpine - The edge at which a book is sewn together.Square capitals - see MajusculeStamp - A tool used to imprint decoration into a leather book cover.Stamped binding - see Tooling (Blind tooling)Stamper - A tool for breaking down rags for the production of paper.Staple - A metal fitting attaching the chain to one of the boards of a chained book, usually at its head.Stationer - One of the middlemen who supplied materials to craftsmen and received commissions to make copies in the period after the rise of the universities around 1200.Stem - The upright stroke of a taller letter like an h.Stemma codicum - A family tree of manuscripts.Stichwort (Catchword) - see CatchwordStitchword - see CatchwordStraight-backed D - A Caroline form of the letter "D" with a straight stem (similar to modern "d")Strap and pin - A device for keeping a book closed and preventing the distortion of its shape.Strew border - see Scatter borderStub - In binding, a small flap of parchment or paper that holds a singleton into the gathering.Stylus - A pointed implement, generally of metal or bone, used for writing on wax tablets.Subdistinctio - The equivalent of a comma in the distinctio system of punctuation, indicated by a single point on the baseline.Subpunction - A series of dots under a line of text or letters to indicate that the text or letters should be omitted.Suffrage - An intercessory prayer, sometimes called a memorial, addressed to a saint. A suffrage is preceded by an antiphon, a versicle, and a response, and may occur during the Divine Office.Suffrages of the Saints - see SuffrageSupport - The writing surface or material upon which a manuscript is written.Suspension - A form of abbreviation in which the end of a word is left unwritten.