For the fourth year in a row, the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences will host an HTR Winter School in collaboration with Austrian Academy of Sciences, Princeton University and Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (ÖAW), with support by READ-COOP (Transkribus free credits), focusing on the automated recognition of handwritten texts in medieval and early modern sources.

The course consists of two main parts:

3 online sessions (Zoom, Friday afternoons) and a three-day in-person workshop in Vienna. Between meetings, we will use two online platforms, Notion.so and Discord.com, to coordinate our work. During the first phase, participants will be briefly introduced to the theory of handwritten text recognition and comprehensively instructed in its practical application using the tool Transkribus (transkribus.eu).

In comparison to previous years, we are extending the number of groups to include Hebrew and Early Modern German (in collaboration with the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences). Thus, we will work in seven groups, focusing on various languages and scripts:

Carolingian Latin | Late Medieval Latin | Medieval Czech | Early Modern German | Byzantine Greek | Syriac | Medieval Hebrew 

Each group will be supervised by a small team of specialists who will select several sources connected with their own expertise (see details below). We will then use these passages for training new HTR models and improving existing models, while learning about various intricacies and challenges.

During the in-person workshop in Vienna, we will finalize the projects and, additionally, we have planned an excursion. At the end of the course, you will receive a certificate, and the results will be published on Zenodo and HTR-United with the names of the contributors.

The course is primarily designed for Master‘s and PhD students. However, we will consider other applicants as well. The course will be taught in English.

Number of participants

There is no strict limit on the number of virtual participants. However, due to capacity constraints, the in-person workshop in Vienna is limited to 10 participants per group (and five participants for the Hebrew group). All accepted virtual participants will have the opportunity to attend the plenary sessions of the in-person workshop via Zoom (group sessions are not included).

Topics and requirements for specific groups:

Please, read carefully:

Carolingian Latin Group

Material:

• We will be working on a variety of manuscripts written in the Carolingian minuscule from the 9^th to 11^th century. Our group aims to further develop the publicly available Carolingian Minuscule Model (CMM), which was originally created by Tim Geelhaar and is now curated by the Institute for Medieval Research. You will have the unique opportunity to contribute to the current main model for early medieval manuscripts. We expect the following qualifications from potential applicants:

Requirements:

• Good knowledge of Latin palaeography → you will manually transcribe and correct a set number of pages from early medieval manuscripts.
• Sufficient knowledge of medieval Latin to correct the automatic transcription (e.g. recognising proper Latin words, separating words appropriately...).

Late Medieval Latin Group

Material:

• We will be working in Latin manuscripts containing famous Bohemian chronicle of Přibík Pulkava from the 14^th century. Our work will be done in collaboration with the Czech group that will be working on the Czech manuscripts of the same chronicle.
• We will also collaborate with the Carolingian Latin Group.

Requirements:

• Good knowledge of Medieval Latin
• Sufficient knowledge of Late Medieval Latin palaeography. Please look at the following example page from a manuscript to assess your proficiency:
  https://app.transkribus.eu/share/324a759fb6a0589fc47d71834288b026

Medieval Czech Group

Material:

• We will be working on Czech manuscripts containing the famous Bohemian chronicle of Přibík Pulkava from the 14^th and 15^th century. Our work will be done in collaboration with the Late Medieval Latin group that will be working on the Latin manuscripts of the same chronicle.

Requirements:

• Sufficient knowledge of Czech (or other Slavic language written in Latin alphabet) paleography - we will be expanding existing models for semi-diplomatic transcription as well as creating entirely new model for interpretative transcription. Each participant will work on tasks matching their skill level, but basic palaeographic knowledge would be beneficial.

Early Modern German Group

Material:

• We will work with autograph letters of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I from the second half of the 17^th-century. Leopold’s handwriting is notorious among historians for being illegible, but in fact it evolved over the course of five decades from being a relatively easy to read in his early years to being virtually indecipherable. We will (attempt to) transcribe German letters of varying degrees of difficulty, using contemporary and later transcriptions (which are rarely perfect and complete) and keeping an eye on the gradual deterioration of this handwriting. We will then train and experiment with HTR models to see to what extent HTR can help in the deciphering and transcribing this fascinating, though challenging, epistolographic corpus of some 5000 letters, still largely untouched by historians.

Requirements:

• Good or advanced knowledge of German palaeography. Familiarity with Romance languages would be of advantage as Leopold used Latin, Italian or Spanish phrases in his German letters. Curiosity and readiness to solve palaeographic puzzles.

Byzantine Greek Group

Material:

• 15^th-century liturgical manuscripts. The script is generally easy to read, though it includes several abbreviations. We will build upon work completed in previous HTR Winter Schools. You will contribute to refining a model that will eventually be made publicly available, while also gaining hands-on experience with Transkribus.

Requirements:

• Familiarity with Greek palaeography. While we will provide materials and support for specific challenges—such as liturgical abbreviations or difficult-to-read marginalia—you should be able to read the larger part of the text independently.
• Basic knowledge of Medieval Greek.

Syriac Group

Material:

• We will be working on Syriac manuscripts written in Estrangelo script, such as the New Testament MS ÖNB Cod. Syr. 4. Our aim will be to train a new HTR model of Estrangelo script, building upon the work of the previous HTR Winter School.

Requirements:

• Some knowledge of Syriac palaeography is necessary, specifically Estrangelo script, as you will be involved in transcribing and correcting handwritten texts.
• Sufficient knowledge of the Syriac language to identify and correct automatic transcriptions, recognize Syriac words, and understand basic grammatical structures.

Hebrew Group

Material:

• We will be focusing on a rare 15^th-century Sephardic manuscript of Maimonides' influential 12^th-century legal work, the Mishneh Torah. The manuscript was originally dedicated to the Sephardic study hall in Tiberias. It belongs to the Moses Gaster Collection and is currently housed at The British Library (with call numbers Gaster 173/174, Or. 10037 and Or. 10038).
• Participants in the upcoming Winter School are free to choose which sections or books of the Mishneh Torah manuscript they would like to transcribe. The aim is to collaboratively train an own Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) model, while simultaneously gaining practical experience in working with medieval Hebrew texts in Transkribus.

Requirements:

Everyone is welcome to participate; however, the following skills would be an advantage:

• Sufficient understanding of (Sephardic) Hebrew paleography to manually transcribe text from the 15^th-century Mishneh Torah manuscript.
• Sufficient Hebrew language skills to correct automatic transcriptions, including word recognition and segmentation.

Help and guidance will be continuously available for any difficulties that may arise.

Costs

There is no participation fee, but you are expected to cover the cost of your travel to Vienna, including accommodation.

Application

Schedule

3 ZOOM ONLINE sessions (always from 14:00 to 17:00)

Session 1 | Friday OCT 24

• What is HTR? A general introduction
• Transkribus 1 (uploading documents, layout recognition, simple transcription)
• Introduction into manuscripts and working in groups

Session 2 | Friday NOV 7

• Transkribus 2 (introduction to models, CER, learning curve)
• Working in groups (first transcriptions)

Session 3 | Friday NOV 21

• Exporting documents / Sharing is caring: How to share and publish your data 1 (introduction)
• Tagging structures and text
• Working in groups (training of models)

3-day-workshop in person in Vienna

Day 1 | Thursday DEC 11

• Finishing work on the transcription and models
• Sharing is caring: How to share and publish your data 2
• Working in groups

Day 2 | Friday DEC 12

• Alternatives to Transkribus
• What can you do with automatic transcriptions?
• Working in groups

Day 3 | Saturday DEC 13

• Time to finish the work
• Presentation of results by working groups