Sian Witherden is at Balliol College, Oxford, working on a DPhil thesis about touch in late Medieval English drama. Here, she writes about teaching medieval page design. In November 2016, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take six very enthusiastic undergraduate students into the Bodleian Library’s Special Collections for a manuscript class …
Palaeography and Diplomatic Teaching at UCL
We are very grateful to Professor David d'Avray FBA (UCL) for allowing us to post this schema of the UCL and joint UCL-King's Palaeography and Diplomatic teaching. He outlines the teaching structure as follows: The Palaeography and Diplomatic Teaching at UCL has three strands, though they are intertwined. Dr Marigold Norbye teaches a seminar course of …
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Folios, Quires, and Codices, Oh My! Introducing Manuscript Studies to Undergraduates
Colleen Curran recently submitted her PhD in Palaeography & Manuscript Studies at King’s College London on the morphology of Insular Caroline in tenth-century Britain. She writes here about her pilot scheme to introduce manuscript studies to undergraduate students. In September 2016, I organized and taught a pilot scheme to introduce English undergraduates at King’s College London …
Practical Palaeography: Recreating the Exeter Book in a Modern Day ‘Scriptorium’
Dr Johanna Green is a lecturer in Book History and Digital Humanities at the University of Glasgow. Her PhD (English Language, University of Glasgow 2012) focused on a palaeographical study of the textual division and subordination of the Exeter Book manuscript. Here, she tells us about the first of two sessions she led for the …
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Teaching Yourself the Codex
This month, Naomi Gardom writes about teaching herself palaeographical skills for a project on Merton MS 95. Naomi is a third-year undergraduate historian at Merton College, Oxford, and received funding from the College for her project. Meeting a manuscript for the first time is a unique experience, similar only to going on a blind date. …
Codicology and the Ben-Hur Phenomenon
September's guest blog post comes from Dr Emily Chow-Kambitsch, and ties in with the recent cinema release of the new 'Ben-Hur' film. Dr. Chow-Kambitsch is a recent graduate of University College London. Her research focuses on representations of antiquity in historical fiction and their reception in popular culture. This month has seen the return of Ben-Hur to …
Teaching Palaeography – A public engagement approach
Our latest guest post comes from Sarah Laseke, who is a doctoral researcher at Leiden University working on scribal collaboration in fifteenth century manuscripts. Here, she writes about her free 8-week 'Palaeography for Beginners' course. The pleasure of looking at medieval manuscripts has not gone unnoticed – over the past few years, there has been an increased …
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Hair and Flesh
We’d like to thank Thom Gobbitt for permission to reblog this fantastic post about learning to distinguish the hair and flesh sides of parchment:
After giving a lecture on codicology in Stuttgart last month, I got a follow up question sent via the organiser (Dr Anja Thaler) regarding differentiating between the hair-side and flesh side of parchment. Rather than just replying, I thought it would make a good subject for a blog post (especially as the month is almost at an end and I’ve not written one yet). So, without further ado hair and flesh.
Before musing on my own experiences, it may first be useful to outline what I mean by ‘flesh side’ and ‘hair side’. First, though, we need to step back and consider parchment (sometimes called membrane, sometimes vellum if derived from cows or bulls). Parchment is the de-haired skin of an animal (particularly cows, sheep or goats, but hey, go wild), which has been soaked, scraped and most importantly dried under tension. The modern definition that leather is prepared…
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Designing an introductory course in Latin palaeography for research students across the disciplines
In our latest guest post, Dr Teresa Webber of Trinity College, Cambridge outlines an interdisciplinary approach to course design in palaeography. The Teaching the Codex workshop in Oxford on 6th February 2016 fostered a dialogue across the disciplines about how elements of manuscript study pertinent to each field are currently being taught. Participants also reflected …
Discovering the Codex: Outreach and the Perks of the Manuscript
In the first of our series of guest posts, Dr Pauline Souleau discusses manuscripts as a tool for outreach. Manuscripts. It is not a word the average pupil hears every day in class. It is usually not a word secondary school students have in mind when considering higher education paths. Yet, manuscripts are a gold …
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Teaching the Codex 