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Medieval Scholars Go to School
By Rick Moore
Philip Grace and Randolph Heights students
Photo by Terry Faust
The world of higher education reached out to the students at the little desks of Randolph Heights School in February, and the 40 children, mostly fourth-graders, were all ears and raised hands.
Graduate students Elizabeth Bowser and Philip Grace, both in medieval costume, made the visit as part of an ongoing project of the Center for Medieval Studies (CMS) to teach elementary students about the invention of the bound book in the Middle Ages. The scholars present a history on the evolution of books, and the students are later given the chance to create their own books using vellum, quills, gold leaf, and ink donated to the program.
The students have been studying medieval history—along with art—as part of their core knowledge curriculum. One question they were asked was why it might make more sense to use paper, rather than tablets (made out of ivory or wood) or parchment or vellum (made out of animal skins), to make books.
“If you had to make a hundred pages out of tablets, it would be like that,” said one girl, holding her hands about three feet off the ground. “Paper seems like it would be easier to make, and you wouldn’t be killing animals,” offered another.
The students learned about the folding of sheets into folios, quartos, and octavos, and how quires (now 25-page segments) were sewn together to make books. They also learned about the ruling of pages and the use of initial letters and illustrations. Finally, they were able to look at and touch an actual medieval manuscript page.
For the children, the event wasn’t without distractions—namely, three photographers from various media milling around the room and a couple of scribes making notes in their lined tablets. Hence, there were a lot of swiveling heads and questions afterward about where they might see their photos.
Elizabeth Bowser
Photo by Terry Faust
The students’ place in the 21st century was also evident. A computer projected Web images of Middle Age transcripts. And when Bowser asked, “What is a stylus?” one boy responded, “You can use it on a Palm Pilot to draw.”
This is the first year of the CMS outreach program, which is funded by a COPE (Council on Public Engagement) grant. CMS scholars visited five other Twin Cities classrooms in March and April.
According to Jean Schalk, an art teacher at Randolph Heights, the program helps make classroom teaching more relevant; and her students were still talking about the visit two days later. “When you try to make the medieval period in Europe come alive, it's really good to have multiple sources of information,” she said. “Seeing an actual document that they can look at and touch is very exciting.”
The costumes sported by Bowser and Grace seemed to help, as well, and the black garment worn by Grace underneath his handmade cloak caught the fancy of one boy in the classroom.
“Do you have to wear tights?” he asked.
“No,” said Grace.
And then a follow-up question: “Are you a superhero?”
“No,” Grace answered. “But not for lack of trying.”
This story first appeared in UMNews, an online publication of University Relations.
