Making a Medieval Book

The Medieval Book in the K-12 Classroom

This outreach program works in K-8 classrooms across the metro to engage children's fascination with the popular trappings of medievalism. Our graduate students, dressed as medieval pilgrims or scholars, will come to your classroom and instruct students on book culture through fun presentations, authentic artifacts, and interactive activities. Students always love engaging with the inks and quills that we bring in, and especially our giant (and authentic) medieval parchment page. 

The program presents the book (by contrast with the ancient roll) as a medieval invention with remarkably useful features: pages which can easily be turned, forward and back, to quickly compare content of different pages; title page; table of contents; running heads; rubrics; footnotes, glossary, and index.

The teams demonstrate writing with a quill on parchment, using black as well as red (rubrication) ink; ruling and laying out features on a page, including text, marginal notes, illuminated capital letters to mark divisions in the text; gilding of important capital letters; consulting running heads, index, glossary, etc. The teams bring with them a parchment page from an actual medieval book which the children are allowed to examine and touch.

Teacher feedback has indicated that students are drawn into a more intimate relationship with books if they have the chance to participate in making them by hand. Through visual, auditory, and tactile contact with real historic books, students will begin to notice and understand how the book—a medium many know less well than, for example, the computer—is organized to provide many kinds of useful information and deserves careful examination. According to classroom teachers, students' new knowledge about the process of book production may well stimulate a new appreciation for books themselves and for reading.

The program was initiated by Center Director Susan Noakes in 2005-06 in partnership with Twin Cities schools and organizations. Medieval Studies doctoral candidate Elizabeth Bowser, a certified and experienced middle school teacher, helped develop lesson plans. In the fall of 2021 in response to the Pandemic, we are developing curricula that can be deployed virtually. More info soon to come!