Medieval manuscripts are an inexhaustible source of information about the past. By their very nature, they facilitate, even encourage, modifications from copy to copy, providing a distinctive framework for knowledge dissemination and cultural evolution. Scholarship struggles to capture this framework and understand the impact of pre-modern practices of textual transmission, organisation, and manipulation on our written heritage. To achieve this understanding, we need to fulfil the full potential of the digital turn in medieval manuscript studies.
<MsPhys> will employ an innovative combination of AI-driven methods in computer vision, natural language processing, and sequence alignment to access and analyse the multimodal nature of medieval manuscripts, integrating three elements:
- The setting in which manuscripts present their contents (layout, paratext, decoration).
- The evolution of texts and the role of context-dependent adaptation.
- The effect of the combination of works in a manuscript on their individual and collective interpretation.
The project will analyse these mechanics of multimodality for one of the most dynamic and widespread medieval text traditions: the Physiologus and its many adaptations. This originally Greek collection of animal stories and Christian allegory was translated in over 13 languages over the course of the Middle Ages. In Latin, it transformed through numerous adaptations into the widely popular bestiaries. Extant in over 700 manuscripts, many of them illuminated, the multi-faceted tradition of the Physiologus is a perfect example of vibrant and creative medieval reception.
The holistic and transdisciplinary approach of <MsPhys> will unlock major new insights into medieval culture from a cross-lingual, longue durée, large-scale perspective, and allow us to address a fundamental question: How did a thousand years of handwritten transmission impact our cultural heritage? Establishing a strong and mutually beneficial connection between historical and computer sciences, <MsPhys> will fundamentally expand the ways in which we use medieval manuscripts as sources.
