Towards the end of the fifteenth century it was found that the extreme tops and bottoms of the backs of the sections of bound books not only looked untidy and unfinished, but also that they tended to gape, in fact they were weak points both structurally and artistically. When it was once realised it was soon rectified, and a small additional band was made of a strip of leather or vellum, to fit along the outer edge of the top and bottom at the back. This slip was then sewn on by means of thread and button-hole stitching, being caught in at intervals by a long stitch drawn through the centre of one or other of the sections of the book. The loose ends of the headband itself were drawn in to the boards, forming in fact an additional band. The headband is a point in the forwarding of a book which has not received much notice as yet, but it is of some importance, as there is no doubt that much attention has been paid by binders to the ornamentation of headbands from mediæval times until now, and it is the first point in the binding of a book in which ornament is considered.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--French sixteenth century headband.]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Italian fifteenth century headband.]
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--German fifteenth century headband.]
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--English seventeenth century headband.]
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--English eighteenth century headband, by Roger Payne.]
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--English nineteenth century headband, by Charles Lewis.]
Some of the early headbands are sewn over with strips of soft leather, and at a later time they are cut in distinctive ways, flat or round, and sewn over with silks of particular colours or combinations of colours.
Of late years the vice of cutting off the ends of the headband has come into being; these ends ought to be drawn properly into the boards, as Mr. Douglas Cockerell has indeed done for me in several instances. But no words can adequately condemn the miserable ready-made coloured slips which are often found simply _stuck on_ in the proper place.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--What a book may do if the back is not properly rounded.]
Vellum books were the first to be properly bound. The papyri which were stabbed are so rare that they may be passed by. As I have already said, vellum is apt to be curly; for this reason the boards used for binding in early days were made of thick wood, the heaviness of which, even when unaided by clasps, tended to keep the vellum flat.