The Studienstiftung Sommerakademie came together for a week in Oxford for a project on ‘Unlocking the Archives’. We spent the week learning the ins and outs of the Oxford libraries and learning everything to know about encoding manuscripts.
Our first day consisted of a tour of the Taylorian Library, a talk about the impact of Luther’s pamphlets as 16th century cancel culture with Rahel Micklich and a workshop on XML encoding based on Emma Huber’s online course for the Taylor Editions. The library is full of secret treasures and we got a taste of all the different areas of expertise. After a fascinating discussion, we decided that as Luther continued to publish pamphlets despite fierce opposition, he did not become a victim of cancel culture. XML encoding presented more of a challenge for those of us without a technological mindset, but once we had understood the basics of learning a new language, things started to fall into place. We understood how to create a beautiful interactive edition from plain text and then begun our transcription of the Lutheran pamphlet that would be our project for the week. We all became so engrossed by this task that we remained later to keep working.
On Tuesday we were treated to a tour of the Weston Library’s Treasured exhibition, with Andrew Dunning, one of its curators. Highlights included a Christmas letter by JRR Tolkien to his children for Christmas, complete with a painting of the scene, and the Junius Manuscript of Old English poetry, but the exhibition was full of all different types of treasure, and focused on what treasure means to different people.
We then returned to the Taylorian Library to learn about exhibition curation in preparation for our own exhibition at the end of the week. We saw a selection of 16th century documents loosely themed around the German Peasants’ war and came up with our own exhibition idea in groups, with concepts including a history of the treatment of books, and ways of understanding medieval knowledge. We discussed how to inspire an emotional response in visitors to the exhibition (based on a guide by the V&A), and create a narrative out of a set of objects, and had a go at writing our own captions.
Wednesday morning featured a visit to the Old Library at Jesus College, a beautiful 17th century room filled with chained books to stop cunning students taking them home. Highlights included former student Lawrence of Arabia’s undergraduate thesis (featuring his attempts to scale the walls of several crusader castles), an entire category of sub-fenestra (under-the-window) books, and several incredibly comfortable armchairs. We then got behind-the-scenes access to several areas of the Bodleian Library, including Duke Humphrey’s Library, the Divinity School and the former royalist parliament active during the English Civil War. We also found the old courtroom where university trials were held – the University of Oxford used to have its own legal system separate to the rest of the country, and was so defensive of this entitlement that after the town attempted to try one of its students, the entire university walked out in protest – and went to found the University of Cambridge!
The afternoon consisted of a very exciting time at the Bibliographic Press of the Bodleian Library where we discovered how several different types of printing press function and learned how to typeset our own names for our very own Reformation pamphlet, ensuring the spaces matched exactly and everyone had spelled their name correctly. Printers’ apprentices used to be able to print 200 sheets an hour working in pairs – we managed about sixteen working as a group with only a few disasters! It was such a wonderful opportunity to discover the inner workings of several historical printing presses from experts, and even returned later in the week to make t-shirts!
Thursday was the day of our excursion to the Oxford countryside. In keeping with the rest of the week, we had a day filled with a variety of different activities. We hired bikes, with a few brave volunteers tackling the tandem bikes (which went better than expected!) and cycled through the beautiful countryside of Oxfordshire, with an excellent tour guide in Henrike Lähnemann. We visited the beautiful Church of St Margaret in Binsey, which has a well in the ground with the power to cure blindness, and inside the church we were treated to a lecture on the development of religious songs and hymns (including a live demonstration by Henrike and Carlos Rodríguez Otero, the College Director of Music!). Then cycling further down the river, we stopped for lunch in the picturesque ruins of Godstow Abbey. After an impromptu sing along, we set off again for a tea break at The Trout Pub. In the afternoon, we paid a visit to Iffley Church, one of the oldest churches in the area, dating back to the Norman period, including a yew tree in the grounds that has stood for over a thousand years! After this wonderful day filled exploring the countryside, half the group went swimming in the Thames and the others ended the day relaxing near the river.
At the end of the week, we brought together everything we had learnt from the week, curating the exhibition for the Taylorian and complete the transcribing and encoding process for our pamphlet. We are so grateful to Henrike, Andrew and Emma for all their help and support, and creating such a memorable experience.