THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Or you could say that the House of Lords has finally entered the 21st century. Either way, acts of Parliament and other important documents will no longer be recorded on vellum. Paper will have to do going forward.

For centuries, acts of Parliament and other important documents have been inscribed on vellum, a parchment made from calfskin. Magna Carta, which King John signed 800 years ago last year, was written on vellum. So was the Domesday Book compiled in 1086, 20 years after William the Conqueror sailed across the English Channel.

This ancient tradition has survived wars, revolutions and the rise and fall of the British Empire. Now, the use of vellum, which has been a contentious issue for more than a decade, has fallen victim to austerity.

The House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper chamber of Parliament, is finally moving to replace the calfskin with high-quality archival paper, calling the move which will come into force in April a necessary — and thrifty — adaptation to the digital age.

The House of Lords — with 819 members, the world’s largest legislative assembly outside China — said the move would save about 80,000 pounds, or nearly $116,000, annually. It said that using animal skin to painstakingly record and preserve laws was hardly efficient, given, among other things, that it is more unwieldy and difficult to store than paper. It can take the skins of as many as 130 calves to produce a 500-page book. Moreover, archival paper is surprisingly durable.

“Currently, the oldest paper records in the Lords date back to the early 16th century, and are only a few years younger than the oldest vellum record in the Archives, which is an Act of Parliament from 1497,” the House of Lords said in an email statement on Wednesday.

This being Britain, where tradition runs deep, the plan to scrap vellum has prompted the ire of traditionalists who argue that history is being forsaken for a pittance.

Money was the spur to overturn this tradition, despite claims by traditionalists that vellum will outlast both paper and digital recording. Penny wise and pound foolish? Time will tell.