Raised bands were originally the cords or leather thongs onto which a book's gatherings were sewn; passed through the wooden boards and later through pasteboard, they ensured the solidity of the binding, and their relief appears on the spine. From the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, almost all bindings had raised bands, numbering four, five or six depending on the height of the volume, and the compartments they formed, the panels, carried the title and the gilt decoration. From the end of the eighteenth century, sewing on tapes or on recessed cords allowed for a smooth spine, and raised bands often became purely ornamental: these are false raised bands, strips of pasteboard glued onto a spine with no structural bands beneath.
The bookseller counts the raised bands and describes the panels: spine with five raised bands decorated with gilt fleurons, red and green morocco title and volume-number labels, for example. The regularity of the bands, the fineness of the gilding and the condition of the panels — often the parts most exposed to light and rubbing — are all taken into account in assessing a binding; a well-preserved contemporary spine with raised bands, with fresh tones, is one of the attractions of a bound antiquarian book.
The usual confusion concerns the nature of the bands: true sewing bands or false decorative bands, which can be distinguished by examining the spine of the gatherings and the inside of the boards. The gilt fillets underlining them are also sometimes mistaken for bands, or a smooth spine simply decorated with horizontal fillets is called a "spine with raised bands". Lastly, a rebacked spine, remounted on an old binding, can be recognised by bands that no longer correspond to the sewing, and should be described as such.
