New research from the University of Cambridge sheds light on the use of seal products across Europe during the middle ages, ...

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 ...

As the skin became more brittle, the hair fell out and the fatty layer beneath began to show more through the years, the white color faded, researchers said. Other than the color, the reason why the ...

This seal is sometimes called the sea leopard, and the resemblance is more than skin deep. Like their feline namesakes, leopard seals are fierce predators. They are the most formidable hunters of ...

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 why monks chose to cover these manuscripts in ...