Jiří Vnouček: King Valdemar’s Cadastre – the conservation of a once-divided manuscript

King Valdemar’s Cadastre (Liber Census Dania or Codex ex-Holmiensis A 41) is a book written around the end of the 13th century. Beside other texts it contains the copy of the oldest preserved Cadastre or Jordbog for Denmark which can be dated towards the end of 11th century. Although this manuscript is rather small in size, it is an extremely important document, since it is the oldest one to record places and names in the land belonging to Valdemar, king of Denmark, which at that time included also Estonia, Skåne (now in southern Sweden) and other provinces. This national treasure was obtained in 1929 from Sweden as part of an exchange of archival documents between Sweden and Denmark. It is now stored as manuscript C 8 in the State Archives in Copenhagen.

From the point of view of the history of the manuscript as a physical object a rather dramatic step was taken around the end of the 17th century, when several quires containing the actual cadastral part of the manuscript were removed from the binding and stored separately for some period from the rest of the manuscript. At the time when the manuscript was exchanged with Sweden these quires had already been reattached back in the original binding but the general condition and functioning of the book binding had unfortunately been permanently affected.

The main task for the recent conservation treatment which was undertaken in the preservation department of the Royal Library was the restoration of the function of the binding and especially its damaged sewing structure. During research into the construction of the binding and the parchment quires of the manuscript it was recognized that the original sewing structure attached to the wooden boards is contemporary with the date of the manuscript (i.e. it was the first binding ever). The preservation of the original binding therefore became an even higher priority. In addition to the careful stabilization of the original sewing structure additional repairs which give information about the history of this once divided manuscript were also preserved. Attention was also paid to studying the parchment folia on which the manuscript was written and the process of manufacture of the whole manuscript. This included observation of different types of parchments, the method of pricking and lining the manuscript and the formation of the quires. Some new information was obtained and hopefully this may help to reveal more details about the history of this manuscript.