About the course

Reading and Working with Manuscripts: A basic module, focusing on palaeography, codicology, manuscript description and transcription.

By the end of the course, students will have learned about the history of the book in Denmark and will become familiar with Danishlanguage manuscripts and text genres from the period 1250-1500. Students will develop skills in paleography and language in order to read Danish texts directly from manuscripts (via photographs) as well as skills in codicology in order to conduct independent analyses of manuscripts.

The course combines independent online learning, asynchronous group discussion and weekly instruction via Zoom. Students will be expected to prepare for the seminars by watching instructional videos, reading relevant assigned literature and participating in a group forum discussion. Two independent research assignments will furthermore be given in the first and second weeks to be delivered by the following session.

Seán D. Vrieland

Seán D. Vrieland is a researcher at the Arnamagnæan Institute, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on the development of the Nordic languages and their written and material contexts, especially late medieval and early modern manuscripts. He defended his Ph.D. in 2017 with a dissertation on a manuscript containing the medieval law code of Gotland in the Old Gutnish language. Later research projects have included medieval Danish charters and post-medieval Faroese manuscripts. His teaching experience includes courses on manuscripts from Eastern Scandinavia and the history of the Germanic languages.

Anja Ute Blode

Anja Ute Blode's research is especially related to medieval Scandinavia. The focus is particularly on historiography, in Latin, as well as in Danish and Swedish. Other research interests include rhymed chronicles at the end of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, text and manuscript transmissions in the medieval North, and the reception of the Nordic Middle Ages, especially in comics, manga and anime. She currently works at the Department for Scandinavian/Fennish Studies at the University of Cologne, where she works for the project j o l n e s - Joint Learning in Northern Studies, which offers international collaborative online teaching.