In some of the better class of manuscripts with the "ivy-leaf" border, the illuminator has made the general design of one page serve for the next one in this way; when he had drawn in the main lines of the scroll-pattern on the borders of one page, he held the vellum up to the light and so was able to trace the pattern through from the other side of the leaf. To prevent monotony he varied the design by introducing different little blossoms among the repeated scroll-work which formed the main pattern. _Preparation for binding._ When the _scribe_, the _rubricator_, the _illuminator_ and the _miniaturist_ (either as one or as several different people) had completed the manuscript it was ready for the _binder_. As an indication of the order in which the leaves of the manuscript were to be bound, the scribe usually placed on the lower margin of the last page of each "gathering" of leaves a letter or number. In the earliest printed books these guiding letters, or _signatures_ as they are called, were added by hand in the same way[291]; but in a few years the regular and more developed system of printed _signatures_ was introduced[292]. _Scribes' signatures._ Scribes' signatures at the end of manuscripts are comparatively rare, but they do occasionally occur in various interesting forms. My friend Mr W. J. Loftie kindly sends me the following: In a Sarum _Missal_ of the fifteenth century at Alnwick Castle, "Librum scribendo Jon Whas[293] monachus laborabat, Et mane surgendo multum corpus macerabat." More commonly manuscripts terminate with a vague phrase invoking a blessing on the scribe, such as this, from a Bible in the Bodleian (No. 50), "Qui scripsit hunc librum Fiat collectum in paradisum." Or this, which occurs in several manuscripts, "Qui scripsit scribat, Semper cum Deo vivat." _Owner's name._ In another manuscript _Vulgate_ in the Bodleian (No. 75), the owner of the book, who was named _Gerardus_, has recorded the fact in this fanciful way,-- "Ge ponatur et rar simul associatur Et dus reddatur cui pertinet ita vocatur." CHAPTER XVI. THE BINDINGS OF MANUSCRIPTS. _Costly bindings._ For the more magnificent classes of manuscripts, such as the _Textus_ (_Gospels_) used as altar ornaments, every costly and elaborate artistic process was employed. In addition to the sumptuous gold and jewelled covers mentioned above at page 55, manuscripts were bound in plates of carved ivory set in gold frames, in plaques of Limoges enamel, especially the _chamlevé_ enamels with the heads of the figures attached in relief, such as were produced with great skill at Limoges during the eleventh to the thirteenth century. Some _Evangeliaria_ were bound in covers made of the ancient Roman or Byzantine ivory diptychs, a custom to which we owe the preservation of the most important existing examples of these.[294] Such costly methods of binding were of course exceptional, and most manuscripts were covered in a much simpler manner.