ARMA - discovering medieval reading culture

The ARMA - the Art of Reading in the Middle Ages project saw thousands of medieval objects shared with Europeana and developed resources to help educators bring these digitised items - and their history - into the classroom. Discover what the project achieved and how to use the resources it developed.

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Medieval coins

Medieval coins show that communication through both text and image was not restricted to books. Coins are tiny historical monuments, material witnesses of how medieval people thought, how they recognised and understood the world.

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Reading medieval coins

What coins where used in the Middle Ages and how far they travelled

Medieval coins show us that communication through both text and image was not restricted to books in the Middle Ages. Coins were not only a measure of how much things were worth, they were capable of expressing personal and territorial identity, economic security and collective memory.

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ARMA Conference in Ljubljana

On 22nd of June the ARMA partners came together in Ljubljana for the second conference of the project. Whereas the first ARMA-conference in February 2022 was still completly digitial, due to Covid-restrictions, we were very happy that this time we could organise a hybrid version and that many of us could meet each other in person for the very first time.

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Reading between the lines

Melodic notation for the public recitation of the Bible in mass

Passages of the Bible have been recited melodically in mass since the beginnings of the Christian liturgy, in a practice that probably grew out of Jewish traditions of reciting the Torah. Musically simple and formulaic, recited texts were rarely supplied with full musical notation. Indeed, most medieval manuscripts of Bible readings for mass, known as lectionaries, contain no music whatsoever.

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Bringing digitised medieval objects into compulsory education

The ‘Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA) project saw curators work with educators to design inspiring and innovative learning materials using digitised medieval manuscripts. We previously explored how these materials were developed for post-secondary education - today, find out the work done for pupils in primary and secondary schools.

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Teaching with digitised medieval manuscripts in post-secondary education

In the ‘Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA) project, curators from different European heritage institutions and educators joined forces to design innovative learning materials for higher education with digitised medieval manuscripts. Read about the achievements of the ARMA partners and how educators can use their materials.

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The Bibliophile of Bruges

Exploring the Manuscript Collection of Louis of Bruges

The 14th and 15th centuries witnessed the rise of great princely and aristocratic libraries all over Europe. These were composed of books that had been inherited, received as gifts, purchased or personally commissioned, either for private devotion and personal education, for pleasure and amusement or for display.

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Medieval monastic book inventories

Learn about medieval book lists and how they differ from today's library catalogues

Libraries are places of knowledge. Everyone who owns books and everyone who manages libraries has always wanted to know what exactly they have in their possession. This is as true today as it was in the nineteenth century, or even the Middle Ages.

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Corbie Abbey and today’s font

How Corbie Abbey's medieval manuscripts connect to today's fonts

When you think of the French region of Picardy, most likely important cities such as Amiens, Beauvais, or Laon come to mind. Corbie is less known and it is not that easy to find even on 18th-century maps of northern France.

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Female literacy in the Middle Ages

Female literacy during the Middle Ages was surprisingly high. Nuns were authors and scribes. Many other women encouraged reading and learning, especially noble woman. One example was Christine de Pizan, a poet at the court of King Charles VI of France.

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Video Series: Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book

Join eight show-and-tell sessions with unique artefacts in the reading room of the Leiden University Library

Medieval manuscripts were collected and read for the texts they contained, especially those surviving from classical antiquity. But the book can tell us so much more than solely the text it contains! Studying the materiality of books can provide important information about how, when, where and even why they were made. It can also show how books were used and valued during the many centuries of their existence.

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Video 08: Dimensions and forms

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this eighth and last episode, she discusses the dimensions and forms of manuscripts.

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From manuscript production to the printing press

How the page layout evolved during the early years of the printed book.

The first books produced in Europe using the movable type printing system were printed in the 1450’s in Mainz, Germany. Although printing had already been practised for several centuries in China, Japan and Korea, it was German inventor Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468) who perfected the technique that allowed the mass reproduction of texts and the fabrication of high quality printed books.

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Video 07: Composite volumes

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this seventh episode, she discusses bindings consisting of parts that were not created at the same time and/or place.

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Monastic rules and similar formative texts

Life in a monastery was structured through and governed by monastic rules, which set out the daily programme and the duties of each member. Most orders followed the Rule of Saint Benedict, but there were others.
Curated by Eva De Cooman.

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Video 06: Bindings

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this sixth episode, she discusses medieval bindings.

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Video 05: Traces of users

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this fifth episode she discusses the traces that readers left in the books they used.

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Video 04: Traces of scribes

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this fourth episode, she discusses the traces that scribes left in their books.

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Video 03: Discontinuous reading

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this third episode, she discusses how scribes adapted their manuscripts to facilitate discontinuous reading.

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Video 02: Structuring the medieval page

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this second episode, she discusses the structure of the medieval page.

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Video 01: Scripts

The video series ‘Exploring the Medieval Manuscript Book’ features book historian Irene O’Daly (Leiden University), introducing a wider audience to unique artefacts that were created with pen and ink in a distant past. In this first episode, she discusses medieval scripts.

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ARMA Europeana Data Model Specifications

This document has been created as part of the generic services project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages', by Europeana in collaboration with the ARMA-partners.

It is intended to assist partners in the ARMA project with advice on mapping their data into EDM, to reach a high data quality standard and using as many linked open data (LOD) references as possible.

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The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages

Let's take a journey through society of medieval Europe to discover the rich palette in which reading manifested.

We begin in the monasteries, where the written Latin word (Latinitas) was cultivated in the early centuries of the Middle Ages, and continue to the noble courts of the High and Late Middle Ages. The attitudes of nobility towards reading changed during the first half of the Middle Ages: the ability to read and write was among the skills civilised knights and damsels should possess. Their interests led to the creation of new literary genres: courts were the birthplace of courtly literature (hence the name).

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Engagement plan is describing how the ARMA consortium will achieve audience development based on the use of collection presentations and datasets, social media, blogs, galleries and a curated online exhibition. The plan also outlines which partners we will be involved and how the material will be incorporated into relevant education platforms.

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This document is the result of Activity 3, Engagement. Activity 3 runs from March 31 2021 to February 28 2022. Every data providing partner has identified relevant objects from their own collections or already available in Europeana and indicated how they relate to the theme of the Art of Reading in the Middle Ages, using a standardized list of topics and keywords. These objects will form parts of editorial outputs aimed at delivering a strong user experience.

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Last week the ARMA project partners delivered a lengthy report. In the period October 2020 - January 2021, they have mapped the relevant items that can already be found on Europeana and the new items that the partners will supply. In total approximately 20,000 medieval manuscripts, incunabula and related objects will be brought together on the Europeana website.

The Europeana website will not only bring together these objects, but the partners will also publish contextual information: an interactive online exhibition, blogs and other so-called editorials. With its outreach program, ARMA not only wants to appeal to a general audience (in several languages!), but in particular also to various educational target groups: primary and secondary school students, and students in higher education.

In addition, the project will also enhance Europeana’s visitor experience by creating rich object descriptions and increase the use and interoperability of the collections via Europeana by using the International Image Interoperability Framework protocol (IIIF)

Now the inventory is completed, the project can really start.

Read more about Milestone 1

The project aims to show how medieval reading culture evolved and became a fundamental aspect of European culture. The project will deliver 20,000 records of medieval manuscripts created between the years c. 500 and c. 1500 to Europeana.

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This project explored the history of the written text in Europe, and aimed to showcase related cultural treasures on the Europeana collections website.

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The rise of literacy in early modern Europe was a result of both the formal education of children and the changing reading habits of adults. Different types of texts were used at different times to spur the trend toward literacy.

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Many medieval manuscripts are full of decorated capital letters that add colour to the page. They come in all styles and sizes, but what exactly are they and what was their purpose?

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