Covering a legal text (an abridgement of the Book of Assizes) this is the earliest datable English blind-stamped gothic binding. It is from the workshop of the Scales binder, so-called for his use of a tool depicting a pair of scales. The unusual feature of this bindery is that it pracised the technique of cutting the leather with a knife to effect part of the design, a habit otherwise unknown in England . Illustrated as frontispiece of AR
