Below is a brief summary by Erin Benton, who recently attended the Summer School in Scandinavian Manuscript Studies at the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík. Erin’s visit was supported by SSNS through a Postgraduate/Early Career Research Grant.

 

With a recent Postgraduate/Early Career Research Grant, I was able to attend the Summer School in Scandinavian Manuscript Studies at the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík from 6 August to 15 August. It was an intensive course, that ran straight through a 10-day period, with the only day off being an excursion to see parts of Iceland. It was also an incredibly rewarding experience, and I learned a great deal that I will take into my own research examining disability in the Icelandic sagas. Throughout the course, we covered medieval palaeography, codicology, illuminations/decorations, Old East Norse, XML, and other transcription tools, how to use catalogues and dictionaries, and post-medieval manuscript traditions.

One of the most incredible experiences was using being able to handle actual medieval manuscripts, as well as post-medieval ones. Being able to learn how to safely handle these books, how analyse them as objects even before examining their textual contents, and how to understand their material history was amazing. With the palaeographical information, I now feel much more confident in dealing with variant versions of these texts in their manuscript form, or at least being able to accurately understand what it says in comparison to edited editions.

Even in lectures on topics I was more familiar with (i.e. the ONP), I found that I still learned ways of using the site that I had not previously considered. Other skills, such as learning to transcribe in XML and using both physical and online catalogues, was incredibly important, especially in terms of making and using databases. Some less academic highlights of this course included an excursion out into the Reykjanes peninsula, followed by a dinner and a swim. I was able talk to many people that I had not been able to previously, but the most exciting part was the folkloric aspects of the places we saw on this excursion. We also did a quill and ink workshop, which inspired a bit more sympathy for the medieval scribes working on parchment, and it felt like a much-needed creative break in the week.

I feel as if I’ve become a part of a much larger research community throughout this trip. The experience of a PhD student can often be a very lonely one, but becoming a part of this wider network of students and academics in many different fields has been wonderful. We are already planning a potential session at the IMC in Leeds next year, as well as plans to attend the Advanced module next year in Copenhagen. I would like to thank the Scottish Society for Northern Studies for assisting in making my attendance in this course possible. I had an extremely fruitful trip, and now feel much better prepared to handle both literary and medical manuscripts in my own research, as well as work with their post-medieval transmissions, to fully understand the wider context of the texts I’ll be examining.

• Erin Benton, 20 August 2024

 

(Header Photo: Reykjavík, Árni Magnússon Institute, GKS 3269 a 4to)