The "heirs" (so-called pupils of the elementary school "Heritage") visited the Book Museum to study the book of the Middle Ages.
As part of the medieval school project, which focuses on the study of medieval history and culture, children examined castles and went on a tour to Lida Castle, visited a knight's club and participated in knight combats. But to learn about book culture young researchers went to the Book Museum of the National Library of Belarus. During several visits the "heirs" got to know the history of the manuscript book and the appearance of printing to Europe.
The visitors not only learned a lot of interesting about parchment, the basic material for the manuscript books of that time, but they also got to see it. The comparative analysis of the roll and the code gave students the understanding, that the form of the code, which survived millennia, is very convenient to quickly find the necessary page or fragment in the book.
Is it easy to write books with a goose feather? Participants made sure that a feather is very similar to the contemporary pen, it's dense and convenient for writing.
Children saw wax plates only in encyclopaedias and textbooks, and in the museum, they had the opportunity to write on wax and erase the written with a stylus.
Who was Belarusian first printer, “the heirs” knew perfectly. They learned in greater detail what the first printed books (incunabula) looked like and how printing was developing in Europe. Together with Francysk Skaryna they "went on tour” across Europe in order to look at the printing presses, types and type cases.
Bibliology Research Department
