books led to the binders of such books, not noted for the finesse of their workmanship (they were not paid enough to be careful), to be known as ‘mutton thumpers’. In Germany, it was the national preference for pork that resulted in the thousands of books covered in white alumtawed pigskin that are to be found in so many German collections, though their parchment bindings are mostly found in calf parchment (i.e. vellum) as pigskin was too thick and tough to work well when turned into parchment. Paper, both plain and coloured or decorated, was always a cheaper option and was used from the late fifteenth century onwards, but is found increasingly commonly from the mid-eighteenth century, when there was shortage of leather and a consequent rise in its price. The same phenomenon led to the introduction of a coarse linen canvas as a substitute for leather for the cheapest schoolbooks and devotional works in the 1760s, evidence of the booktrade constantly looking for new ways to control costs and get books into the hands of their customers at the best possible price. There is no room in this rapid review of bookbinding to look at the full variety of materials, structures and techniques used to make them, nor is there space to discuss the range of techniques used to decorate the covers of books, beyond making the point that the vast
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