This manuscript was written on parchment codex. The codex is a form of book consisting of folded sheets that are then sewn together along an edge. Judging by the light color of the pages it most probably was initially treated with pumice and then whitened with chalk.
The term parchment is often used generically to denote animal skin prepared to receive writing, although it is more correctly applied only to sheep and goat skin (Brown, p.95, 1994). Vellum is the term that should be used to identify calfskin used for writing. The process of preparing the skins involved a lime bath, scraping, then the use of a pumice and chalk. Techniques for preparing the parchment differed and resulted in a different appearance from one technique to the next.
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