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In-depth searching for specific content in medieval manuscripts requires labor-intensive, hence time-consuming manual manuscript screening. Using existing IT tools to carry out this task has not been possible, since state-of-the-art keyword spotting lacks the necessary metaknowledge or larger ontology that scholars intuitively apply in their investigations. This problem is being addressed in the “Research Südtirol/Alto Adige” 2019 project “MENS – Medieval Explorations in Neuro-Science (1050–1450): Ontology-Based Keyword Spotting in Manuscript Scans,” whose goal is to build a paradigmatic case study for compiling and subsequent screening of large collections of manuscript scans by using AI techniques for natural language processing and data management based on formal ontologies. We report here on the ongoing work and the results achieved so far in the MENS project.