Medieval manuscripts in the classroom: on site or online? For students who choose to immerse themselves in the Middle Ages, it is important to encounter the primary sources that lie at the basis of their secondary literature and editions. André Bouwman • November 23, 2021
A Medieval Matthäus-Passion This is what the ‘score’ of a St Matthew Passion looked like, long before Johann Sebastian Bach was to create his famous Oratorio. André Bouwman • April 15, 2019
Mundus Inversus in a Chained Library During the years that Leiden University maintained a chained library (1595-1653) the books were placed on the shelves upside-down. Read here why. André Bouwman • August 15, 2018
Arthurian Hero Meets Cistercian Monks in Bonn Installing the Wigalois manuscript in the Rheinisches Museum. A courier reports. André Bouwman • November 07, 2017
The Decorations of Brugmans, or, How a Leiden Professor became a Hero at Waterloo By his display of vigour and efficiency, Brugmans saved the lives of many casualties. André Bouwman • June 18, 2015
Book burning in Louvain, 1914 Louvain was destroyed by German troops at the end of August. More than 200 civilians were shot, and a thousand manuscripts, eight hundred incunables and 300,000 books went up in flames. André Bouwman • August 29, 2014
Love Lessons from a Dutch Civil Servant Dirc Potter treats the dos and don’ts of love in a didactic poem of 11,000 verses. The theory is illustrated with some sixty examples: love histories taken from the Bible and the work of the Latin poet Ovid. André Bouwman • April 01, 2014
Huygens in Leiden: the house rules of landlord Paravicino Constantijn Huygens received the regulations in a letter dated 26 May 1645. Were they disputed by his sons Constantijn Jr and Christiaan, who were students in Leiden and rented rooms at Paravicino’s? André Bouwman • May 23, 2013
Two hundred years of Reynard studies: the Gräter edition (1812) Late in the 1790s, the now famous animal epic Van den vos Reynaerde was discovered in the library of a German abbey. André Bouwman • December 07, 2012
