The early Middle Ages are characterised by constant exchange and multicultural relations. During this period, Irish scholars began to annotate texts with glosses in their own language and Latin, which has influenced European intellectual history until today. The techniques of annotation spread rapidly across the European continent.

Gloss-ViBe examines the early Insular Celtic glossing tradition on the Venerable Bede’s De Temporum Ratione. The main research question of the project is: “Are vernacular glosses original compositions or translations from original Latin glosses?” In order to find answers, the project examines the Irish and Latin glosses in the manuscript Vienna, Austrian National Library, Codex 15298 (olim Suppl. 2698), and in three other early medieval manuscripts, from different perspectives. Methods of the digital humanities, philology and linguistics are combined in an innovative approach.

Since there is a general lack of comprehensive editions of early medieval glossed manuscripts (including primary and paratext), this study is a ground-breaking and challenging task. One of its most important outputs will be the first comprehensive digital documentary edition of the Vienna Beda. It will include both the primary text and all glosses and annotations.

The original manuscripts are highly susceptible to deterioration - all the more important are the advances in the digital humanities, which this project makes use of. It touches on the question of how (digital) documents can be annotated, and offers insights into how information has been processed, which is directly applicable to modern annotation systems. In addition to the research into the multicultural environment in which early medieval manuscripts were written Gloss-ViBe also contributes to the understanding of modern migration patterns, especially in a scholarly environment.