PALIMPSEST · Unlocking Historical and Molecular Archives

Europe’s rich historical record has been plundered for information about climate and weather in the past. From instrumental data, to correspondence and even paintings, climate historians have tried to link direct human record with molecular records from trees, lakes, caves and oceans. My fellowship seeks to explore a new avenue, the rich collections of parchment held in archives across Europe.The corpus of handwritten parchment represents one of the major cultural assets of European heritage. Research has tended to focus on the written texts, but we propose an overarching investigation that attempts to explore the potential of parchment records to be annual records of molecular change.Parchment is comprised predominately of collagen, a protein that is easy to isolate and purify. Skin collagen turns over once a year, thus the collagen in parchment represent a molecular signal from a year of skin production.In this project we will focus on the potential of the Archbishops’ Registers held in the Borthwick Archive in York. The series of York archiepiscopal registers begins in 1225 and continues, with only brief gaps, until 1972 when the practice of keeping registers was discontinued