Evidence for the Construction of Quires in a Fifteenth-Century English Manuscript

Recent conservation work on St John’s College, Cambridge, MS S.54, a late-fifteenth-century collection of Middle English carols and lyrics, uncovered connecting ‘bolts’ showing that what had seemed to be separate bifolia were in fact quadrifolia, with further evidence suggesting that the quadrifolia derived from octofolia, or pages created by folding sheets three times and only then cutting them apart. These are the only recorded surviving ‘bolts’ in a manuscript in English, and they offer further evidence for the importance of folding in the construction of quires. The use of folded sheets, cut open at a late stage, also tells us much about the transmission and circulation of the Middle English carols and lyrics in this manuscript.