Educational videos

Mmmonk School is a webinar series on the medieval book, in which experts introduce the basics of their field of expertise. The (first) edition of 2022 discussed bindings, religious communities, heraldry, miniatures, reading culture, liturgical manuscripts, and digital research with IIIF.

Five children share their thoughts on six medieval manuscripts. Can they make sense of a world of miniatures, gold, droleries, parchment and Latin? What do they discover by looking at the manuscripts with a beginners’ gaze? What can they teach the experts?

An introduction to the project.

Written Culture at Ten Duinen: Cistercian Monks and Their Books, c. 1125-c. 1250 uses both traditional and new methodologies to examine the extant twelfth- and early thirteenth-century manuscripts from the Flemish abbey of Ten Duinen, once situated in the dunes near present-day Koksijde. Patterns in the production and use of books are identified within the abbey's extant manuscripts and defined by analyzing substantial data, gathered within a customized database, for each manuscript unit (i.e., both homogenous manuscripts and non-homogenous manuscripts wherein parts can be differentiated by production period or technique). Scriptorium, library, and reading practices are then situated within the context of the Long Twelfth Century (c.1075–c.1225) and the abbey’s Cistercian network to discuss how the monks of Ten Duinen organized, accessed, interpreted, and transmitted knowledge in the manuscripts they made and used.