Links
Things are appearing so fast, and occasionally disappearing, that it is hard to keep a comprehensive links section up to date. Just call me Lady Canute as the waves of digitised literate culture lap around my toes. Any suggestions or corrections for this section gratefully received. The links are divided into sections which seemed like a good idea at the time, and will stay that way whether it was a good idea or not.
Studying Virtual Manuscripts
Paleography Tutorials There are some other approaches to paleography on the web, and a couple of efforts that don't seem to have progressed. I know how they feel.
Single Manuscript Studies There are some wonderful sites out there that examine a single manuscript in some detail. The best of these can give you an idea of how a whole manuscript work is constructed.
Themed Sets of Manuscript Books These comprise studies of multiple manuscripts of the same work, or sets of manuscripts with similar themes and content.
Studies of Manuscript Documents Legal documents are the Cinderellas of the manuscript world, as compared to fancy illuminated books, but the are the meat and drink of historians.
Complete Digital Facsimiles There are now some sites that bring entire manuscript books to you on the web, enabling serious research. We eagerly await more of it!
Miscellaneous Digital Facsimile Collections Far more common are sites that display an an assorted sample of pages or illustrations from manuscript works. Useful for testing your paleographical skills, or just getting a taste of what these things look like.
Practical Scribal Arts
Calligraphy, Tools and Techniques If you want to make your own pens and inks, learn the calligraphic arts or find out what is eating holes in your manuscript collection, you might find what you want in here.
Literary and Documentary Texts
General Literature Sources A number of sites provide a miscellany of complete texts and excerpts from a range of medieval literary sources.
Individual Authors or Works There are sites displaying the complete works of individual authors of note. Some of these have a splendid array of background resources and contextual material as well.
Themed Works Irish poetry, military history, pilgrimage - there are numerous sites which have collected together texts on specific themes.
English Vernacular Literature Various sites specialise in presenting Old English or Middle English literary works. It doesn't all have to be about Latin.
Religious Literature It is amazing that just about any obscure and ancient work of Christian literature is on the web in translation somewhere, as well as the more mainstream ones of course. How else do you think I set up some of those paleography exercises?
Documentary Sources Some sites have specialised in the presentation of significant legal or historical documents.
Utilities and Resources
Utilities Want to find the date of Easter in 1357, or whether Henry I came before Henry II, or find the modern equivalent of a Latin place name, or the meaning of an obscure Latin word, or just give up and hire yourself a translator? Have a look here.
Introductory and Background Resources A bit of a miscellany that might just expand on some of the areas of interest.
Research Institutes, Projects and Databases There are some pretty heavy duty research projects going on in the area of manuscript studies, and some substantial datasets being put online. Power users can check out some of them here.
Seals and Heraldry People are always emailing me about seals. Take a look here first.
Glossaries Medieval studies are full of strange words. Our glossary on this site is restricted to terms relating to paleography and manuscript studies, so you may need to consult some of these to find out what some of our authors were writing about.
Archives and Museums So you're sick of the pale shadow of cyberspace and want to look at the real thing. This may point you in the right direction.
Link Pages There is nothing more irritating than going to a link page on the web and finding that it points you to yet another link page. Nonetheless it can be useful sometimes, as nobody knows where everything is. I have put them in their separate section so that they don't irritate you, but they are there if you need them.

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This site is created and maintained by Dr Dianne Tillotson, freelance researcher and compulsive multimedia and web author. Comments are welcome. Material on this web site is copyright, but some parts more so than others. Please check here for copyright status and usage before you start making free with it. This page last modified 8/7/2011.