Recently, we all (Arianna, Beatrice, Denise and Madeline) had the opportunity to participate as students in the first ever ANTIDOTE (Advanced Training in Digitization of Older Texts) week at Stift Klosterneuburg. While we were there, we attended lectures and workshops on making digital editions with TEI-compatible XML, applying handwritten text recognition technology to manuscripts, and using computational philology software to analyse our texts . We visited local libraries and archives, including the archives at Stift Klosterneuburg, the Austrian National Library, and the Library of Schottenstift Abbey.
Although we each focus on different areas and traditions of medieval manuscripts, we all had the opportunity to see manuscripts and develop skills relevant to our research.
Arianna: Our hosts from the Klosteneuburg Abbey made us feel welcome from the very first day. In addition to the workshop schedule itself, they organised multiple tours of the abbey, its museum, wine cellar and library, and arranged several manuscripts for us to browse and leaf through in the magnificent Cupola Hall. They also had us roll up our sleeves for a quite engaging codicology exercise: we could pick (up, literally!) one of the available codices to examine it from quire structure to decoration. Beatrice, Maddie and I had our eyes on Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, Cod. 80, a 15th century codex containing Augustinian works as well as a necrologium, where canons from Klosterneuburg recorded the deaths of those affiliated with the abbey. We were fascinated by the multiple layers of scripts stretching from the 15th well into the 17th century, wearily marking the passing of time. This gloomy content turned out to be a palaeographical riddle that made our hands-on exercise way more intriguing.
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|
Images 1. Cupola Hall, Klosterneuburg Abbey Library; 2. Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, Cod. 73; 3. Me carrying our manuscript to our workspace; 4. KNB MS 80, fol. 88v
We were lucky enough to enjoy a whole week of sun and relatively high temperature, and just outside the abbey there happened to be picnic tables with signs inviting passers-by to stop for a minute and meet new people. Of course, the signs were in German so I’m paraphrasing here. As a matter of fact, we owe huge thanks to our designated German-live-translator Denise, who patiently assisted us non-German speakers in the most successful endeavours like getting sweet treats from the nearest Bäckerei. So we all ended up spending the second half of our lunch breaks sunbathing at those picnic tables, sipping coffee and chatting with our manuscript-enthusiast peers from all over Europe. We had such a great time, I can’t wait for round two 😎
Bea: We had the most beautiful experience when we went to the Austrian National Library: I was in awe when we saw Rabanus Maurus’ carmina figurata and Bede’s De Temporum Ratione!
 |
 |
|---|
Rabanus Maurus’ carmina figurata and Bede’s De Temporum Ratione
Denise: This was a great experience as I not only enhanced my TEI-coding knowledge but also learnt a lot about the manuscripts at Klosterneuburg. I was allowed to look at their oldest manuscript (KNB MS 848 from the 9th century) in person and counted the quires (the website description is indeed correct!). The manuscripts at the Austrian State Library were amazing to look at as well, especially the Irish fragments as I deal with them in my research. All in all we had some interesting days in Klosterneuburg that were put together by the team of the Stift as well as the experts from the different universities - having such an international community was great!
Madeline: Learning more about the relationship between manuscripts and their digital editions and transcription practices was a great experience. My research generally uses editions that have already been transcribed, so I'm looking forward to applying what I’ve learned at ANTIDOTE into my research on text processing for Middle English. I'm very excited for the next session of ANTIDOTE this June to learn more about handwritten text recognition (HTR) and computational philology, as I hope to use both in a future PhD project.
We’re all looking forward to the next session of ANTIDOTE later this year. We’ll be meeting back up with the same group of students and experts at the University of Iceland in June to continue learning and applying our new digital skills to our research.
Arianna, Bea, and Denise are all PhD students with the Wandering Books project, about which more details can be found on the TCB project webpage at this link.