Sophomore Claudia Haines has always had a deep interest in medieval studies and is pursuing a certificate in that field while majoring in history and the history of art and architecture. In Pitt’s Archives and Special Collections, she found a French book of hours — a Christian devotional book very popular during the Middle Ages — that dated to the late 15th century. She’s working on an in-depth analysis of the book’s contents, colorful imagery and provenance.
Her faculty mentor, Elizabeth Archibald from the Department of History, helped her decipher a signature inside the book’s front cover as “H. Zouch.” Looking through the United Kingdom National Archives website, she found that the Sheffield City Archives held a few letters written by Zouch. She emailed the archives asking if they could send her a scan of one of the letters so she could compare the signatures.
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