The material on the covers of books from a French abbey was too hairy to have come from calves or other local mammals.

An international team of archaeologists, bioinformatic specialists, and historians has discovered that many medieval books ...

A trove of books written by medieval-era French monks were bound with bizarre “hairy” covers from far-away animals — shedding ...

The books hail from Clairvaux Abbey, founded in 1115 by Cistercian monks in northern France, and its daughter monasteries. Some tomes are nearly 900 years old. Researchers had thought they were ...

The monks curated a vast manuscript and book collection at the Library of Clairvaux Abbey, a site in Champagne, France, founded in 1115. The group of 12th- and 13th-century works expanded to more than ...

I love my husband, I really do. In many ways, he's perfect. Yet, when I met a hot Swedish backpacker on my White Lotus-style ...

Historians were surprised when analyses revealed Catholic monks used pinniped hides for the protective outer layer on some ...

Medieval book covers previously thought to be made from deer or boar skin are actually made of sealskin from northern regions ...

Earlier this week, our beauty columnist Rio Viera-Newton released her newly updated Google doc of skin care (in honor of the ...

The cover isn’t made from fabric or paper ... Other than the color, the reason why the monks chose to bind their books in seal skin remains a mystery. “We have no written records to explain ...