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On October 29 to 31st 2014, the first Training School organized by COST Action IS1301 took place at Antwerp. Organized by August den Hollander (Univ. Antwerp/BE/VU-Univ. Amsterdam/NL) and Sita Steckel (Univ. Münster/DE), the event was designed to provide training to doctoral and advanced master students, to familiarize them with the research agenda of the COST Action and to establish connections between heritage institutions, early stage researchers and established scholars. To document the outcomes of the event, a report and, more importantly, some of the revised presentations given by the participating doctoral students, will be published on this blog over the next few days. Report – Antwerp, 29-31 October 2014The programme for the three intensive days at Antwerp – mostly spent in the congenial setting of the library of the Ruusbroecgenootschap (Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp) therefore combined three elements: Local and external experts presented lectures and hands-on training for the participants in the mornings. The afternoons started with visits to three local exhibitions of high relevance for the topic of the event, and ended with sessions of short presentations given by the participating doctoral and master students.The first day was dedicated to central considerations of book history. The event was opened with a lecture on „Antwerp and its Role in the Religious Book Production” by Prof. Dr. Hubert Meeus (Univ. Antwerp/BE), which illustrated the most important trends in religious book production and its contexts from the late Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. The second lecture, which included reading and interpretation exercises, was presented by Dr. Suzan Folkerts (Univ. Groningen/NL). Her talk “From Monastery to Market Place: The Production and Reading of Middle Dutch Bibles” investigated what marginalia and ex libris can tell about the reading and readers of Middle Dutch Bibles. The concluding lecture by Dr. Stijn van Rossem (School of Arts, Gent/BE) focused on “Publishers’ Strategies: The Verdussen Family, Antwerp 1589-1689”. Contrary to the established view of a ‘decline’ in book production and trade, he framed the Verdussen’s strategies as a strategy of internationalization and specialization in printing, book distribution and trade.The afternoon began with a highly topical guided tour to the Museum Plantin-Moretus, which houses the complete printing offices of the early modern Plantin company, including a special exhibition on the unpublished Polyglot Bible by Balthasar Moretus. In this setting, the first four presentations by participants were given and discussed.The paper by Leena Enqvist (Helsinki/FI) discussed the use of „Books in Birgittine Spirituality and Monastic Life“, drawing attention to the large libraries established for female members of this religious order in Scandinavia and England (Vadstena, Naantali and Syon). Her discussion of the use of Latin and vernacular texts in devotional readings, ritual, administration and education brought out a gradual pattern of bilingualism with different degrees of use of Latin or vernacular texts. She also highlighted the ‚transitional’ status of female readers, a topic which returned several times in the Training School discussion.Cora W. Zwart (Groningen/NL) discussed a case study illustrating the formation of a specific community of intpretation, „The book legacy of Elisabeth De Grutere († Ghent 1500). Religious books in lay hand“. As she could show, the wealthy laywoman Elisabeth de Grutere seems to have acted as „active reader“ for a community of readers of devotional texts from different social strata, possibly associated to a nearby beguinage, which seems to have profited from Elisabeth’s legacy. As can be shown from the materiality of a booklist, the book legacy seems to have been used as a loaning library for the members of the community.Denise Ardesi’s (Tours/FR) presentation on „Guy le Fèvre de la Boderie and the Antwerp Polyglot Bible“ revolved around the ambitious project of the Polyglot Bible on show at the Museum Plantin-Moretus. Associating one of the collaborators on this project, Guy le Fèvre de la Boderie, with the religious movement of the Family of Love, headed by Hendrik Niclaes, Ardesi argued that Le Fèvre’s goal was to document hidden universal truths emerging from the juxtaposition of the bible versions.The presentation by Germán Jiménez Montes (Sevilla/ESP) on „Spanish-Flemish Trade Networks in the Distribution of Religious Books during the Sixteenth Century“ returned to the topic of Flemish book trade networks already discussed by Van Rossem in the morning. As Jiménez Montes argued, a symbiotic relationship between book producers in Antwerp and distribution networks straddling Seville and the New World can be seen to develop. This trade network not only caused financial and cultural repercussions for producers and distributors, presenting them with new opportunities, but also significantly helped the international spread of cultural and religious behaviours.The Training School’s second day focused more strongly on religious identities and their connections to the production and use of religious texts. The morning opened with a lecture with hands-on exercises by Dr. Goran Proot (Bibliotheque Mazarine, Paris/FR). Discussing „The Typographical Title Page and its Development between c. 1500 and c. 1800”, Proot presented his findings on the long-term development of the layout, typography and decoration of title pages, highlighting elements connected to specific cultural or confessional identities. The next presentation by Dr. Els Agden (KU-Leuven/BE) returned to the issue of vernacular reading. Her discussion of the question “Were Catholics in the Low Countries allowed to read the Bible?” showed that there was an intense meta-discourse about the use of vernacular religious texts by uneducated laypeople straddling the confessional divide. In her lecture on “Strategies of Publishing: The Case of Franciscus Costerus S.J.”, Dr. Patricia Stoop (Antwerpen/BE) also treated the question of how laypeople read the bible. As her example of the sermons written by the Jesuit Costerus showed, we see layered strategies and contents aiming at different readerships, providing both detailed bible exegesis, short ‘teaching’ texts and prayers, at times in the same book.The afternoon began with a visit to the special exhibition ‘Sacred Books’ in the Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience, which presented fascinating examples of the different types and cultural strategies of presenting holy texts and their metatexts. In this setting, the next four papers by participants were presented and discussed.Sarah Nangle (Dublin/IE) presented on „The Musical Reader of London British Library Manuscript Arundel 292“. As she showed in a discussion of a poetic text contained in this manuscript, the teaching and learning of song and music in late medieval Norwich was embedded in a multiplex discourse which saw musical training as religious devotion, but also pictured it as a process of realizing the full human potential and erasing irrational and animal impulses in the students.Next, Louise Vermeersch (Ghent/BE) discussed „Multimedia Practices and Urban Contexts in the Reformation Low Countries“. Using the example of martyr books produced in sixteenth-century Ghent, she argued that the success of printing needs to be more closely linked to multimedia practices and performances of texts, which play a large role in religious polemics and group formation.The paper by Alisa van de Haar (Groningen/NL), „United in Song. Creating Multilingual Religious Communities through Psalm Translations in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries“, returned to the issue of translation. Sixteenth-century translations of psalms had to navigate both issues of religious orthodoxy and of identity-laden dialectal differences. As Van de Haar argued, older explanations revolving around national identities cannot explain the complex interplay of religious interpretation and political community-making actually at work in the translations.The day’s last presentation, by Jade Sercomanens (Genève/SU) focused on „The Political and Religious Construction of the „Maternal Body“ in the Renaissance and the Impact of the Reformation: Norms, Rules and Literary Models in French-Vernacular Books for Women, 1488-1589“. As she argued, a new educational literature for women in the context of the Reformation re-used older popular and profane concepts of feminine education and physicality, but filled them with religious content. In this way, new patterns of femininity focused on purity and religious virtue could be transmitted to a broader public.The third and final day turned towards the topic of ‚Sacred Places’ with a special emphasis on monastic localities. The first lecture by Prof. Dr. Kees Schepers (Antwerp/BE) presented “Manuscripts Relating to Spiritual and Mystical Culture in the Seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries”. Discussing two manuscripts owned or written by the nun Katharina de Flouwijn from the Malines Thabor monastery, he was able to elucidate mystical traditions received and adapted at Malines as well as an elaborate culture of sermons, which were documented in writing and also contributed to individual religious reading. MA Jonas van Mulder (Antwerp/BE) then discussed “Miracles as Facts. Miraculous Healings from Procedure to Publication in the Seventeenth-century Low Countries”. Focusing on the popular genre of books reporting miracles (which were also presented in original during the lecture), Van Mulder highlighted a shift in medium: While official reports substantiating healing miracles had so far mostly been used in legal contexts, the publication of legal documents with narrative renderings of the miracles allowed a different discourse to emerge. This was undergirt by confessional conflicts in which miracles became both objects and arguments of polemic.The morning was concluded by the last two presentations by doctoral researchers. Stephan Lauper (Fribourg/SUI) presented “The Briefbuch (ADBR Cod. H2185) of the Commandery of St. John Zum Grünen Wörth in Strasbourg“. This letter book, containing foundational documents and a letter exchange with a fictional founding figure, the ‚Gottesfreund im Oberland’, seems to have been conceived as an identity document deeply tied to the convent’s identity. As Lauper argued, its makeup and probable use (it was chained within the convent chapel) make this manuscript a quasi-relic and thus a sacred object.Monika Michalska (Jagiellonian University, PL) presented her analysis of “The founding tradition of the Cistercian cloister in Henryków in the light of medieval monastic sources“. As she could show, the Latin Chronicle of Henrykow, which in turn rested on older documents, documents a series of struggles over the founding history (and thus the identity and legal status) of the monastery. While the earliest stratum from the thirteenth century seems to document a conflict about the monastery’s true founder, later rewritings and additions highlight the spiritual, but also the political circumstances of the foundation, thus giving insights into ongoing negotiations of identity.The day was concluded with a tour through the special exhibition ‚Sacred Places’ hosted in the Museum an de Stroom (MAS), given by the exhibition’s curator Guus van den Hout. A concluding evaluative round and subsequent anonymized feedback confirmed that the mixture attempted by the Training school organizers was viewed as a success: As was emphasized, the hands-on, materiality oriented exercises and visits provided both a basis and a focus for the more discussion-oriented presentations and lectures. Thanks to the efforts of the invited trainers and the doctoral participants, the discussions also managed to bring out connections between the topics, leading to lively discussions. Watch out for the series of short texts by the particpants, to be published over the next few days.&#160;