Manganese model complexes, relevant to the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) in photosynthesis, were studied with Mn K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), Mn Kb X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES), and vibrational spectroscopy. A more detailed understanding was obtained of the influence of nuclearity, overall structure, oxidation state, and ligand environment of the Mn atoms on the spectra from these methods. This refined understanding is necessary for improving the interpretation of spectra of the OEC. Mn XANES and Kb XES were used to study a di-(mu)-oxo and a mono-(mu)-oxo di-nuclear Mn compound in the (III,III), (III,IV), and (IV,IV) oxidation states. XANES spectra show energy shifts of 0.8 - 2.2 eV for 1-electron oxidation-state changes and 0.4 - 1.8 eV for ligand-environment changes. The shifts observed for Mn XES spectra were approximately 0.21 eV for oxidation state-changes and only approximately 0.04 eV for ligand-environment changes. This indicates that Mn Kb XES i s more sensitive to the oxidation state and less sensitive to the ligand environment of the Mn atoms than XANES. These complimentary methods provide information about the oxidation state and the ligand environment of Mn atoms in model compounds and biological systems. A versatile spectroelectrochemical apparatus was designed to aid the interpretation …