Dating back to the first century A.D. Nag Hammadi codices, tacket binding is one of the oldest forms of joining individual folded leaves of a quire either together or to a covering. It was also used in both Byzantine and the Western cultures as a temporary way of joining leaves together before a manuscript went to the binder.

Tackets are traditionally made of strips of rolled parchment soaked in wheat paste, but can be made of string or leather lacing. These strips pass though the covering and the folded leaves and can be either knotted or twisted together (if soaked in a wheat paste solution) either on the inside or outside of the binding.

Covered in parchment or leather, most examples of codices where tackets are the primary binding are flexible.

The image to your right is a large notebook. The instructions here are for a smaller book.

Here is a binding adapted to artifical sinew taught to me by Jody Alexander, a wonderful book artist in California. (I am waiting for permission to post this)