linked cover extensions (Q392)

Linked cover extensions can only be found when there are cover extensions at the head- and tail-edges of a cover as well as the fore-edges, that is to say when extensions meet at a corner. Instead of leaving the extensions separate, some binders chose to extend one extension at a corner so that it could be enclosed within the other. Linked extensions have been found on small group of French laced-case limp parchment bindings of the mid-sixteenth century, with a single, no doubt French-inspired, British example. Eighteenth-century German examples on laced-case parchment bindings with boards have also been recorded.