This course will run online from 14:00-17:00: Monday 26 January – Thursday 29 January 2026.

The course explores medieval Western philosophical and scientific manuscripts produced over the span of the 9th to 15th centuries. It examines the role manuscripts played in the creation and shaping of the medieval philosophical and scientific discourse and studies a sample of manuscripts in detail. Manuscripts not only transmitted ancient and medieval texts but provided an interactive physical surface which facilitated intellectual activities such as glossing and visual thinking, and thus served the exchange of ideas. We shall look at the relevant aspects of manuscript production and the details of glossed manuscript folios as they are a visual reflection of the intellectual endeavours that produced them. The course examines by means of digital images the layers of textual and visual interpretation produced by scribes, readers, and annotators and considers the various interpretative attitudes that developed and interacted over time. We shall analyse the diverse visual forms in which texts and diagrams appear in manuscripts copied at various times and within different scholarly milieus. We will ponder how reading texts in manuscript form brought, and still brings, additional dimensions to the study of philosophical and scientific texts and concepts.

Further information about Winter School courses is available here.

Fees 

The fees for the IES Winter School 2026 are:

• Standard | £220
• Concession* | £150

*unwaged/student

Bookings will close on 19 January 2026.