The innovative game MedievalMe was launched this week. This so-called serious game allows pupils aged 13 to 15 to discover the medieval world in a fun, playful way. The KB masterpiece Der naturen bloeme takes centre stage in it.
MedievalMe
The MedievalMe project brings ancient heritage to life. Pupils work in teams and are playfully introduced to interdisciplinary thinking in science, history and heritage. This teaches them how to solve complex issues by approaching them from different disciplines.
In the game, they solve puzzles and mysteries using Der naturen bloeme, a 14th-century encyclopaedia from the KB collection. They not only learn about this book but also about medieval society at the time in which it was written. The game was developed by the team behind the Medieval Meme Generator.
Der naturen bloeme
The first version of Der naturen bloeme was written by Jacob van Maerlant in 1270. In those days, academic books were almost always written in Latin but this book was unusual because it was written in Dutch. The KB has two different manuscripts of this book: one dating from around 1350 and another from around 1450. The older version was used for the game.
Der naturen bloeme lists natural phenomena as they were believed at the time. Among the pages, for instance, you will find headless people with eyes in their shoulders, people with feet so big they used them as parasols, ostriches eating iron and an elephant with horse legs.
De relevantie van erfgoed
MedievalMe is not only about heritage but also about the importance of collaboration. Modern education increasingly focuses on cross-disciplinary learning. Having different disciplines such as history and science support each other enables both to become stronger than they would otherwise be. Sanne Frequin, an academic at Utrecht University: "Collaborating with experts from different disciplines is one of the things I enjoy most about my work as an academic. I am proud that we managed to capture this in a game, so that secondary school students can also experience the power of interdisciplinary collaboration."
The game is free and can be used on phones, tablets and laptops. René Ooms, designer at Doyle, stresses the importance of experiences: "MedievalMe shows that medieval heritage should not only be preserved but also experienced. It is precisely by letting people play and have fun with heritage that you make it relevant to new generations." MedievalMe contributes to this by turning every classroom into a medieval escape room.
