Deciphering Secrets: The Illuminated Manuscripts of Medieval Europe

Perhaps no other relic of the European Middle Ages captures our imagination more than illuminated medieval manuscripts, or those documents decorated with images and colored pigments. Serving as windows unto a lost world of kings, ladies, faith, war, and culture, they communicate complex visual and textual narratives of Europe’s collective cultural heritage and patrimony. In this fashion, illuminated manuscripts are dynamic messages from our communal past that are still relevant today in fields like graphic design and typography.
 
 In this seven-week course, students will explore the material creation, content, and historical context of illuminated medieval European manuscripts. Students will acquire an introductory knowledge of their distinguishing characteristics, their cataloguing and periodization (when they were created), the methods utilized to produce them, and their historical context and value.
 
 Student achievement will be assessed using not only traditional multiple-choice quizzes, but more importantly will be evaluated based on individual student projects. In their final projects students will either (1) produce a board of commented images about medieval manuscripts or (2) prepare a physical manuscript using medieval methods. The best of these peer-evaluated projects will be posted on the Deciphering Secrets website, which is our collective citizen scholarship web presence that encourages and supports our global citizen scholars appreciation and contributions to transcription of medieval manuscripts.
 
 Finally, we wish to highlight that this course is an exciting international collaboration between the University of Colorado (USA) and Universidad Complutense Madrid (Spain).

• COURSE INTRODUCTION. INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL WORLD AND MANUSCRIPT STUDIES
• MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN KINGDOMS (PART 1) AND WRITING SUPPORTS AND BOOK FORMATS
• MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN KINGDOMS (PART 1) AND WRITING SUPPORTS AND BOOK FORMATS: Lesson Choices
• MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN KINGDOMS (PART 2) AND THE WRITING CASE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CODEX
• MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN KINGDOMS (PART 2) AND THE WRITING CASE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CODEX: Lesson Choices
• A GLIMPSE OF SPAIN'S KING ALFONSO X "THE WISE" AND PREPARING THE PAGE FOR WRITING
• A GLIMPSE OF SPAIN'S KING ALFONSO X "THE WISE" AND PREPARING THE PAGE FOR WRITING: Lesson Choices
• PALEOGRAPHY AND A HISTORICAL CASE STUDY AND WRITING THE CODEX
• PALEOGRAPHY AND A HISTORICAL CASE STUDY AND WRITING THE CODEX: Lesson Choices
• EXPLORING THE GLOBAL MIDDLE AGES AND ONLINE COLLECTIONS AND CODEX DECORATION
• EXPLORING THE GLOBAL MIDDLE AGES AND ONLINE COLLECTIONS AND CODEX DECORATION: Lesson Choices
• BOOKBINDING AND COURSE COMPLETION
• BOOKBINDING AND COURSE COMPLETION: Lesson Choices
  • Choice 1: (one of both projects is required) | Choice 2: (one of both projects is requireded)