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Zotero bibliography

There is now a Zotero bibliography for medieval Latin palaeography here.

This is an open bibliography created by Anna Dorofeeva (University of Göttingen). Everyone is welcome to contribute! Before adding items, please note the following instructions for tagging:

1. The tagging language is English. Please only use tags in other languages if there exists no equivalent English term, or if the non-English term is more widely used.

2. Tags are added to items by users and are user-defined (they do not match any existing ontologies or terminologies). You may create new tags in Zotero, but please observe the rules described here. A file downloadable at the bottom of this page provides an overview of the current full list of tags, copy-pasted from Zotero. This file will be updated about once a year.

3. Tag all items with a date, e.g. “ninth century” (no hyphens; do not use precise years). For general / overview publications, use a broad description: “central medieval”, “early modern”, “medieval”, “Renaissance”.

4. If relevant, tag items with a place (city, country, monastery, etc.). Write out “St” as “Saint”. French placenames with “Saint” are hyphenated (e.g. “Saint-Germain-des-Prés”). Please try to use only modern names, but other kinds of names (e.g. “Francia”) are fine if they are commonly used today.

5. Tag all items by general topic or subject, e.g. “parchment”, “codicology”, “endbands”. Multiple tags can and should be used, e.g. “women” “scribes”.

6. Tag all possible script names, creating new tags if necessary. E.g. “pre-Gothic” items can also be tagged with “early Gothic” and “transitional script”. “Gothic” items can also be tagged with “cursive”, “bastarda”, “textualis”, “libraria” etc. “Half-uncial” can also be tagged with “semi-uncial”.

7. If you see an item with missing tags, or with wrong tags, please correct it!

eManuSkript: New project to create digital teaching tools in palaeography funded at the University of Göttingen

Group of people sitting around a round table in the middle of a room filled with bookcases.
Göttingen students working with manuscripts at the Vercelli Spring School.

A project by Dr. Anna Dorofeeva at the Institute for Digital Humanities in Göttingen has recently been awarded €400,000 in the Freiraum 2023 competition by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre. Over the next two years, a team of historians and programmers, working in close collaboration with BA and MA students, will develop a range of teaching and learning tools for manuscript studies, including palaeography.

There exist very few digital tools suitable for teaching the full range of skills necessary for working with medieval codices. Access to culturally important manuscript sources is restricted to those with specialized subject knowledge, which creates significant challenges for students. In addition, the immense potential of the millions of manuscript images available in interoperable IIIF format has yet to be fully exploited in teaching. This project aims to develop a series of digital tools that will make use of these images and of the expertise available in Göttingen. The tools will include apps for measuring, selecting and modifying scripts; evaluating page layout; and working with manuscript bindings. Other apps and extensive tutorials are planned. The project will also undertake further development of pre-existing tools, including improvements to applications for multispectral imaging, for digital editing and annotation, and for forms of image storytelling. Guided student participation will be key to the development of these tools, which means that they will be rooted in practical requirements, conceived by the users themselves, and suitable for both classroom and research use.

The eManuSkript project runs for two years from 1 April 2024. A website with more information is being developed. In the meantime, please get in touch with the team members if you have any questions or if you wish to collaborate.

Digital Palaeography in Göttingen

Digital Palaeography team at the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen. From left to right, back row: Dr Mona Kirsch, Deputy Head of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the SUB; Prof. Dr. Winfried Rudolf, Professor of Medieval English Philology; Dr. Anna Dorofeeva, Lecturer in Digital Palaeography; Jakob Vogel, Student Assistant. Front Row: Prof. Dr. Martin Langner, Professor of Digital Humanities; Ruby Ku, Student Assistant.

Digital Palaeography is a special strand of teaching, learning and research at the Göttingen University Institute for Digital Humanities. Established in 2021, it aims to revive and consolidate palaeographical teaching and research in Göttingen and beyond. It focuses principally, though not exclusively, on Western Latin palaeography. Göttingen boasts rich resources for the study of medieval manuscripts: the collection of the Diplomatic Apparatus, the diverse collections of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, portable multispectral imaging equipment and the expertise of our Imaging Scientist, Alexander Zawacki, as well as the resources of the Institute for Digital Humanities.

Summer School 2022 student examining manuscripts at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel.

In order to train the next generation of manuscript scientists and palaeographers, we now teach a range of special subjects in both English and German. They include, at MA level, the Spring and Summer Schools in Palaeography and Imaging Science; Digital Tools for Manuscript Studies; Analysing Gothic Manuscripts Using Digital Imaging; and Digital Palaeography: Skills and Methods. At BA level, we teach, among others, TEI-XML, Digital Editions and how to work with Transkribus. From winter 2023, there will be a Digital Palaeography strand of the MA in Digital Humanities. Our students learn many skills, among them the history of scripts, transcription, multispectral imaging, the principles of neural networks, TEI-XML, IIIF, cataloguing and editing, fragmentology, and new digital tools (e.g. VCEditor, Transkribus). They have the opportunity to travel to libraries abroad – most recently, the archives in Vercelli and Verona – and to work with a broad range of sources in Göttingen, from charters, to manuscripts and manuscript fragments, to wax tablets. If you are interested in studying with us, read how to enrol for a course on our website.

Manuscript studies class.

Research strengths at Göttingen include fragmentology, early medieval palaeography, structural codicology and manuscript miscellanies. We welcome expressions of interest from research students and those looking for research collaborations!