Sewing the Text Block
Once the printing is completed, the pages are folded into gatherings or quires and stacked in the correct order to be bound. The printer leaves marks called signatures at the bottom of the pages to ensure the correct order, without the need to read the text. Until the mid-nineteenth century, books were sold unbound. A customer would come into the book shop and pick their stack of pages, which would be taken to the binder.
Binding begins with sewing the text block, which refers to the pages between the binding. A sewing frame can be used to assist the process by holding the cords taut and evenly spaced. Five cords were commonly used during the early modern period, which resulted in raised bands down the spine. Each quire is added individually and sewn to the cords.
Quires and Sewing Frame
After each quire is folded, they would be arranged according to their signatures. A signature is a mark at the bottom of the page, usually beginning with A1 and moving through the alphabet. The person folding and nestling the pages into quires will know the order and thus the quires can be stacked appropriately.
Binders would often use a sewing frame to assist them in sewing the quires together. The frame allows the cords or tapes to be suspended, which makes it easier to attach the quires.
This broken binding shows the ways in which the quires were neatly stacked and sewn to three bands. The bands would have extended past the text block to be attached to the binding. This shows how the book would appear before the outer binding was added.
Book Binding Shops
This image from a small book reproduces a seventeenth-century binding shop. It shows a text block being sewn on a frame, as well as a binder applying glue to the spine of a book. The same tools can be seen in the woodcut illustration to the left. The poem discusses the process of binding.