medieval

post–grad:

A BIG OLD LIST OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY & LITERATURE RESOURCES.

y’all knew this was coming. the resources I especially recommend are bolded, and I’ll probably update this periodically.

HISTORY, SOCIETY, & POLITICS.

• the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (modern English translation). begun in the late 9th century and added to until the 12th.
• clear map of the Norman Conquest.
• English medieval history from the BBC.
• Terry Jones’s “Medieval Lives” documentary series. yes, the one from Monty Python.

LANGUAGES.

• OLD ENGLISH
• Anglo-Saxon dictionary.
• Introduction to Old English. (with exercises; click on the “aerobics” link on the left; you may need to make an account.)
• massive compilation of O.E. resources. I mean it, it’s massive.  
• Middle English dictionary. note: when searching dictionaries, use the first few letters of the word followed by an asterisk – spelling wasn’t standardized! so if you’re looking up the word tonnen, search ton*.
• Anglo-Norman dictionary.
• READING & PRONUNCIATION
• Reading Middle English. a really thorough group of lessons on basic (Chaucerian) language, pronunciation, and analysis.
• basic/general Middle English pronunciation guide.
• scholars reading Chaucer aloud. 
• History of English podcast.

ART.

• MANUSCRIPT IMAGES
• Discarding Images (facebook). hilarious/beautiful manuscript marginalia.
• the Getty’s open content program. (they also have a tumblr). you’ll have to do some searching but they’ve got a ton of gorgeous manuscript pages.
• the Book of Kells online.
• all of Mallory Ortberg’s posts about the two monks.
  
• POC in medieval art history.
• medieval drama. includes resources for mystery cycles, art, and music.

LITERATURE & SCHOLARSHIP.

• TEAMS manuscript editions. scholarly editions of medieval texts with great footnotes, accompanied by extremely well-researched introductions.
• BLOGS
• In the Medieval Middle. this is one of my absolute favorite medievalist blogs – it’s run by a group of (well-known) scholars, but is based more on their personal interests than any single overarching theme. 
• the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts blog. a fabulously eclectic (and really active!) selection taken from the BL’s holdings.
• the Wellcome Library’s blog on early medicine. does what it says on the tin. 
• MedievalBooks.nl. Erik Kwakkel’s blog – provides some well-curated blog posts about books, binding, etc. 
• Andreas Capellanus’s De Amore. a guide to courtly love – important to know if you’re going to be reading anything medieval, especially romances.
• Chaucer resources.
• ARTHURIANA
• basic overview by Judy Shoaf.
• big list of Arthurian legend academic resources. includes some really good bibliographies.
• the Camelot Project. makes the above list look small.

MANUSCRIPTS & MANUSCRIPT RESOURCES.

• MS REPOSITORIES
• the Huntington Library.
• the British Library.
• the Digital Scriptorium.
• SPECIFIC MSS
• Electronic Beowulf / Beowulf with facing-page translations.
• the Ellesmere Chaucer.
• Making Parchment. a short animation by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
• Making Manuscripts. a really lovely series of videos (20 mins total) from the Getty that show the actual ms production process.
• Late Medieval English Scribes. a database of scribal hands with examples of letterforms.
• Sexy Codicology. collaborative blog dealing with paleography & codicology.