HISTORY 847/LATIN 751 LATIN SOURCES OF LATE MEDIEVAL HISTORY SOME ONLINE AND SOFTWARE RESOURCES FOR LATE-MEDIEVAL PALAEOGRAPHY AND DOCUMENT WORK Language Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (“DMLBS”) Their website (but not for actual searching – for that, see below) is http://www.dmlbs.ox.ac.uk/web/welcome.html This was originally published in print, in installments (“fascicules”), from 1975 to 2013. A revised version of the entirety was later published in print form as R.K. Ashdowne, D.R. Howlett, and R.E. Latham, ed., Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (British Academy, 2018), 3 vols. The full online version is available via Mullen. An earlier, less comprehensive, but still extremely valuable version of this is R.E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources (British Academy, 1965) (good used copies are available from the usual online sellers at pretty reasonable prices) There is a list of Latin terms commonly encountered in manorial records online at https://studylib.net/doc/8638532/select-word-list-from-manorial-records it does not appear possible to download it The Standard Lewis and Short dictionary of Latin is online at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?lang=Latin A parallel resource that may be useful even if working with sources primarily in Latin is the online Middle English Dictionary, at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary And likewise many central government records in England in the later middle ages are in a form of Anglo-Norman French (which is not exactly the same thing as the French of the period) and a useful resource for that is https://anglo-norman.net/ Dates C.R. Cheney, A Handbook of Dates for Students of British History (2nd edn, Cambridge, 2000) Cheney is the standard (I’ve worn out two copies myself). A workable part-substitute is at http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/guide/chron.shtml Place-names Victor Watts, The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names (Cambridge, 2004) Eilert Ekwall, Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th edition, Oxford, 1960, multiple reprintings) Ekwall was the standard for many decades and is still one of the best reference works. Watts is larger and draws upon EPNS (see below) work up to the end of the 20th century, and so is current with recent research and probably the best one-volume reference now. The most important, detailed, and high-resolution source for place-names, especially below the level of town/village/parish, is the series of county-by-county volumes published by the English Place-Name Society – for coverage see https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/epns/survey.aspx Online resources for palaeography There are many of these and some are good for particular historical periods, types of documents etc. For sources like the ones this course considers probably the best is from the National Archives (UK): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latinpalaeography/ (some of this site is no longer supported so it takes a little poking around to get used to it, but it does give some sample documents with their transcriptions and translations) NOTE that this course concentrates upon document sources created in England/Britain in the later middle ages. But there are resources that aim to cover a broader territory. For many decades, since its first publication in 1899, the standard aid for forms of abbreviation etc. has been Adriano Cappelli, Dizionario Di Abbreviature Latine ed Italiane (many editions, and still in print). A shorter version in English translation is Adriano Cappelli, The Elements of Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography, tr. David Heimann and Richard Kay (University of Kansas, 1982), downloadable from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/213385262.pdf There is an online searchable database, based upon Cappelli, that allows one to view abbreviations and the texts they represent, which is excellent but takes some practice to use productively, and is probably best if you are working with sources beyond Britain and/or earlier than the 12th century or so: https://www.adfontes.uzh.ch/en/ressourcen/abkuerzungen/cappelli-online The “Medieval Handwriting App” is an app for smartphones that allows the user to practice reading MSS (not, generally, the kinds of documents this course is working with): https://ims.leeds.ac.uk/online-resources/teaching-resources/ (scroll down to the bottom for info and links) “Enigma” is a site that attempts to help you, when you can see and identify some letters in a word, figure out the letters that aren’t clear (such as a string of minims); it isn’t a panacea but can be helpful and is worth trying out: http://enigma.huma-num.fr/ Software Image enhancement/editing For Windows-based devices: IrfanView is in my opinion by far the best package, and it is freeware. It allows you to rotate, crop, resize, and make adjustments in color balances and sharpness for images. More basically, it is also an image viewer and you can set it as the default viewer app when you open any image on your device. To download (for the 64-bit version which I recommend unless you are using a quite old device): https://www.irfanview.com/64bit.htm For MacOS-based devices: the Photos app that is standard with most Macs will do most of the things IrfanView does. Handwritten text recognition and digitizing The principal software for this at present is Transkribus: https://readcoop.eu/transkribus/ However it requires some optimism to believe that this will be applicable with good results to handwritten Latin documents of the sort this course studies any time soon. There are hopeful projects underway however and one of these is described at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFfxBXQE-AI
