Summer school at the University Library
‘Od średniowiecznego rękopisu do edycji cyfrowej’ (eng. From medieval manuscript to digital edition) – with this title, the Summer School organised by the Centre for Medieval Studies of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in cooperation with the Library of the University of Wrocław (https://csm.kul.pl/szkola-letnia/) took place from 11-22 August.
Sixteen participants from Poland and abroad, selected from more than forty applicants, explored: codicology; Latin palaeography, with particular emphasis on Gothic script; medieval Latin, both in the context of the language itself and writing; textual criticism and, finally, the presentation of a critical edition in digital form. The classes were taught by experienced medievalists from various research centres.
An important role is played by the fact that BUWr is home to the largest collection of medieval manuscripts in Poland, so participants had the rare opportunity to work with original objects under the supervision of librarians. The fruit of the workshop is a digital edition of a sermon by Ludolf of Żagań, abbot of the monastery of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine in Żagań between 1394 and 1422, which begins with the words: Super tribus sceleribus Moab…. (On the three crimes of the Moabites…). It is preserved in as many as four copies in the BUWr codices, which provides opportunities for the study of manuscript tradition. The following databases and digital tools developed at the UWr were used in the course:
Digital Library of the University of Wrocław (https://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/);
Pinax – online manuscript inventory of BUWr (https://pinax.bu.uni.wroc.pl/);
Translab – a tool for transcription of scanned texts (https://translab.uwr.edu.pl/).
Photo report: Paweł Piotrowski
