Skin is boring script within a linework design

You will laugh when you hear what Brother Anselm has done to the Gospel of Saint Mark. The abbot sent it back to the scriptorium after the binder complained that the calfskin was too thin for the second gathering, so the vellum was scraped and stretched again until it went the colour of weak tea. Anselm sat with it by the north window for three days and came out grumbling that skin is boring. He said it to the abbot's face, and the abbot, who is no fool, asked him what he proposed instead.

I went to see the page last night by candle. He has drawn a sunburst in the margin, rays of black ink fanning out from a small ring, and inside the lowest curve he has lettered the words in our plainest hand, running them slantwise so they cut across the hide like a cart track. Below, where the old hair pores show through, he has stippled the ground in dots, row on row, until it looks like gravel after rain. The abbot stood over it a long time and then said nothing, which from him is praise.

Anselm says the ink will outlast the animal, and I suspect he is right, though I told him the brothers at the tannery will not thank him for the joke. He laughed and said the calf had never once been asked what it thought of being a book.

Write soon, and tell me whether the bishop's clerk still reads your letters aloud at table.

Your brother in Christ, Matthew