Parchment is an early form of paper that was created in Greece around 250 BC. Parchment is a thin material made from skin, usually calf, sheep or goat that was commonly used for pages of books or manuscripts. The skin is not tanned, as it is in leather making, but is stretched, scraped and pressure-dried until it turns a light color and becomes stiff.
It is possible to hear the term Vellum for parchment. Velum is normally used to mean a fine quality parchment but originally meant parchment made only from calf’s skin which was supposed to be the best quality parchment. Currently is it very difficult to find animal skin parchment, but a plant-based alternative is mass-produced and available to consumers, mostly for baking purposes.
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Parchment was created and perfected in Pergamum, Greece as a replacement for papyrus, which was temporarily not being exported from Egypt. Parchment was found to be more durable than papyrus and its popularity quickly spread. Parchment reached the height of popularity in the latter part of the Middle Ages, but then lost favor due to its susceptibility to temperature and humidity changes. Largely replaced by paper, parchment was still occasionally used for government documents
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