Mansikoiden

Mansikoiden is a Finnish term that refers to the genitive plural form of the noun mansikko, which denotes a sheet of parchment, paper, or other material used for writing or drawing. The word derives from the Latin root manus meaning hand, reflecting the manual craft of creating and using such sheets. Historically, mansikko has been employed to describe both plain sheets of paper and more elaborate manuscript pages produced for religious, literary, or administrative purposes. In medieval Finnish manuscripts, mansikoiden were gathered into volumes, each page contributing to the overall structure of the text. The use of the plural genitive form mansikoiden indicates possession or association, as in phrases describing materials belonging to a particular collection of pages or to a scribe’s toolkit. Modern Finnish may use renders of manus in academic and archival contexts, where mansikoiden specifically refers to historical manuscript pages. Scholars of archival science and Finnish paleography regularly encounter the term when cataloguing old books, illuminated manuscripts, or archival deposits. The precise identification of mansikoiden within a collection aids efforts to preserve, digitize, and study early printing and manuscript culture in Finland.