DMSI - Digital Medieval Studies Institute
Organised by Laura K. Morreale and N. Kıvılcım Yavuz
When: Friday 10 July, 08.30-17.45
Where: University of Leeds
Open to: All Welcome (IMC Delegates and the Public)
Price: £140.00
How to Book: Advance Booking Required via IMC Registration.
In partnership with the University of Leeds Institute for Medieval Studies (IMS), University of Leeds Libraries, and Digital Medievalist, the Digital Medieval Studies Institute (DMSI) returns to the IMC for a second year to present a full-day programme featuring workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists.
The day-long DMSI introduces participants to a range of digital methodologies currently in use within the field of medieval studies and offers in-depth exploration through one of five workshop offerings. All workshops combine short presentations and guided exercises and encourage collaborative experimentation. In addition to the workshops, there will be a group meeting at the start, sessions of lightning talks at midday, and an end-of-the-day wrap up session that will provide opportunities for networking with other scholars with shared interests. The primary goal of DMSI is for attendees to gain sufficient training during the one-day event to apply the skills acquired to their ongoing research and teaching in medieval studies. A drinks reception will bring the day to a close.
This event can only accommodate a limited number of participants and early booking is recommended. Thanks to the generosity of the University of Leeds IMS, the University of Leeds Libraries, and the Leeds Digital Humanities and Cultures Hub, ten bursaries are available to support attendance to DMSI. Five of these bursaries are reserved for current IMS students and alumni. A limited amount of on-campus accommodation will be available for DMSI participants to purchase at registration.
Those interested in applying for a bursary must submit their application by 20 January 2026 directly to the DMSI organisers. All award holders will be notified before the IMC registrations open in February. Further information including a link to the bursary applications is available at https://tinyurl.com/DMSI-2026-UK. For any questions or application enquiries, please contact the organisers at [email protected].
Workshop offerings for DMSI 2026 are as follows:
TEI for Beginners: Encoding Text and Extracting Data
Sebastian Dows-Miller (University College London)
This workshop equips participants with the core skills needed to use TEI-XML (Text Encoding Initiative–Extensible Markup Language), the standard for digitally representing historical documents. Participants will learn to encode text and metadata according to the TEI Guidelines, with particular attention to medieval texts and manuscript descriptions. They will explore how TEI data can support digital editions and how to extract metadata from existing catalogues. By the end, participants will be able to apply these methods in their own projects.
Using Local LLMs and VLMs: Prompting, Structuring, and Automating with Medieval Data
Delphine Demelas (Southampton Digital Humanities, University of Southampton)
This workshop introduces participants to practical methods for using large language models (LLMs) and vision–language models (VLMs) in research. Participants will learn how to install and run models locally, design effective prompts for historical language tasks, and structure prompt–response data for future fine-tuning. They will also work with VLMs to support the description and cataloguing of medieval illuminations by generating draft text and metadata. Ethical issues, documentation, and critical evaluation of generative outputs will be integrated throughout.
Nodegoat Curious: Building a Custom Relational Database for Your Research
Pim van Bree (LAB1100), Geert Kessels (LAB1100), and Jesse W. Torgerson (Wesleyan University)
Nodegoat is a web-based humanities research environment for creating data-rich repositories and analytical frameworks across a wide range of projects. This workshop is led by the platform’s creators together with a scholar who uses Nodegoat in multiple research collaborations. Participants will be introduced to the principles and possibilities of relational databases and why these structures matter across disciplines. Each participant will then receive step-by-step guidance to build a bespoke data model for an existing or in-progress research project.
Artificial Intelligence: Image Analysis Applied to Medieval Manuscripts
Dominique Stutzmann (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (IRHT), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris)
This workshop explores how artificial intelligence offers fresh perspectives, using the case of semi-standardised production of books of hours in medieval western Europe. Participants will gain hands-on experience with computer-based image analysis to detect and identify miniatures and iconographic motifs and cycles. Additionally, they will learn to implement handwritten-text recognition and text analysis, uncovering repetitive patterns and unexpected anomalies.
Manuscript Materiality in a Digital World
Dot Porter (Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries)
This workshop considers the challenges and opportunities of working with manuscript materiality in a digital world. Participants will examine selected manuscripts from the Cultural Collections of Leeds University Libraries and discuss the technical and philosophical issues that arise when engaging with both physical objects and their digital counterparts. They will then work hands-on with digital images, video, and the VCEditor (https://viscoll.org), a collation-modelling tool, to explore how manuscript structures can be represented and analysed in virtual environments.