Patterns stamped on leather by means of punches or small dies are found in numbers of early instances on horse trappings, shoes and boots, and accoutrements of various sorts; and almost as soon as it was found out that skins of animals could be rendered soft so as to be wearable, it was also found out that they could be ornamented by patterns cut or impressed upon them. Such patterns are made when the leather is damp and soft, and on drying they become hard and permanent. Many of the earlier impressions made on leather bindings are done by means of hard styles held in the hand and drawn along the leather. Beautiful Celtic interlacings done in this way are found in the ancient Irish “polaires” or book covers. Others are small ornamental stamps which have been impressed on the leather in the same way as we now make an ordinary seal. One of the earliest instances of a leather binding with ornamental covers is on a Coptic MS. on papyrus, dating from about the eighth century, which has been originally stabbed, and the pattern is an interlacing one with ornamented fillets, between which are impressions from small cameo stamps. In time special tools were carefully cut in hard wood or metal for the avowed purpose of ornamenting leather bindings. The exact date at which this occurred it is impossible to say. So far as Europe is concerned, the earliest known blind tooled bindings range from about the twelfth century onwards. Earlier books were either covered with the rich metal and jewelled mediæval work that I have already noticed, or else bound in vellum with ties and without ornamentation. [Illustration: FIG. 86.--English blind tooled binding, 12th century. London.] In England the art of blind tooling reached its highest level from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and, thanks to the researches of Mr. W. H. J. Weale, there is little doubt that the English excelled in this art. The Germans succeeded best after the English, but German work never approaches the English, either for excellence of general design or for delicacy and beauty of the small engraved stamps. The English work was on goat skin or calf, the German generally on pig skin. The stamps used in blind tooling--that is to say, without gold--are cut in the same manner as a seal stone is, only that the cutting is much deeper, and in deep places needs no finishing. When this is pressed upon the soft, damp leather, the leather rises up of itself into the deep hollows cut in the stamp, and so a charming, natural, and apparently much studied relief is automatically given. Such stamps are called “cameo” stamps because of this relief.