Palaeography Training: Medieval Manuscripts

Palaeography training resources

Bibliographies for the workshop are available by clicking on this link: Palaeography Training

The following pages are recommended for practice in advance of the training, especially the palaeography training online course provided by the National Archives:

• http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/
• http://www.slais.ucl.ac.uk/
• http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/hot/mss.html
• http://www2.sas.ac.uk/ies/cmps/index.htm
• http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/hi/adults/latin.htm

The following links lead to some collections of digitally available medieval manuscripts which may be used for personal research as well as transcription practice:

Digital images/projects

The British Library Turning the Pages Project http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

The Electronic Beowulf Project http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/eBeowulf/main.htm

The Digital Medievalist Project http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php/Main_Page

The Canterbury Tales Project

Irish Script on Screen – Trinity College Dublin http://www.isos.dias.ie/english/index.html

Bodleian Library http://image.ox.ac.uk/

National Library of Scotland http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/index.html

Cambridge University http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/digital_image_collections/

Digital Library of Wales http://www.llgc.org.uk/drych/index_s.htm

St Laurentius Digital Manuscript Library http://laurentius.lub.lu.se/

Digital Scriptorium http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/

Pierpoint Morgan University Library http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/

Medieval Writing (with Palaeography exercises) http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/writing.htm

Notre Dame University ttp://www.library.nd.edu/medieval_library/digital_projects.shtml

The Aberdeen Bestiary http://www.clues.abdn.ac.uk:8080/besttest/firstpag.html

The Age of King Charles V (1338-1380): 1,000 Illuminations from the Department of Manuscripts, The Bibliothèque Nationale de France http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/aaccueil.htm

Other relevant links

• The Book of Kells: Trinity College , Dublin
• British Library Treasures
• The Cary Collection: Medieval manuscript leaves in the Carey Graphics Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester , N.Y.
• Chepman & Myllar prints (earliest Scottish printed books), National Library of Scotland
• DScriptorium Digital Manuscript Image Project
• Hill Monastic Manuscript Library Images
• A Hundred Highlights from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Netherlands)
• See the Index by art genre and medieval manuscript illumination
• Obshtezhitie : Projects and Publications in Medieval Slavonic Manuscripts and Early Printed Books.
• The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection : An Exhibition at the U. Pennsylvania Library.
• The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive (Hoyt Duggan)
• The Sala Family Archives : Medieval and Early Modern Catalonian Charters (by Joseph Gwara; hypermedia edition, Jessica Vitz).
• Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry .
• Index of images from Les Tres Riches Heures
• The Van Kampen Collection : Biblical and Medieval Manuscript Collection.
• "The collection contains the largest holdings of Wyclif manuscripts in private hands in the world."
• Vatican Library Exhibit: Rome Reborn
• Vatican Library: IBM Scriptorium Project
• Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis - the succesful project for the new catalogue and digitalization of hundreds of manuscripts at the Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek of Cologne
• Progetto Irnerio - a website of the CIRSFID, the centre for legal philosophy and computer law at Bologna , with digitized juridical manuscripts of the Collegio di Spagna, Bologna
• Saint Laurentius Library , Lund - an example of an ongoing project for the cataloguing and digitization of the medieval manuscripts (Medeltidsk Handskrifter) at Lund University Library; one can download the first version of the catalogue
• Codices Electronici Sangallenses - the wonderful manuscript collection of the Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen is to be digitalized following the example of Cologne

Online manuscript catalogues

• National Union Catalogue of Manuscripts Collections (NUCMC) - the Library of Congress launched this site for searching medieval manuscripts in many American collections
• Manuscript Catalogue , British Library, London - a very important instrument for fast searching of texts in many thousands manuscripts, also from more recent centuries
• St. John's College, Cambridge - a searchable version of M.R. James' fine catalogue, with additional notes and also images
• Manuscripta Mediaevalia , Marburg - a site for very detailed manuscript research in German collections; apart from the searchable database you can check digitized images of some 180 printed catalogues
• MANUS - a database for searching medieval manuscripts in Italian libraries
• Codex - Inventario dei manoscritti medievali della Toscana - a database with now some 2000 manuscripts in Tuscany
• Hill Monastic Manuscripts Library (HMML), Collegeville , Minn. - this site enables searching for some ninety thousand manuscripts in Austrian and Spanish libraries
• Porbase - temporarily unavailable, an online database for medieval manuscripts in Portuguese libraries
• Manuscript catalogue, Universität Graz - one of the first online manuscripts catalogue, showing also digitized images
• TABULAE-Datenbank , Vienna - a database for the Codices 1-15500 of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
• Beinecke Library , Yale University , New Haven , Conn. - not only for manuscripts, but also for other collections
• National Library of Scotland , Edinburgh - both an online catalogue for searching manuscripts and an overview with downloadable catalogues in PDF-format
• University Library, Glasgow - searching both for manuscripts and the special collections
• Manuscripts at Munich and Augsburg - this commercial website enables access to some electronic manuscript catalogues, among them the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (Clm and Cgm series)
• Pierpont Morgan Library , New York - the catalogue of a library with more than thousand beautiful manuscripts; as an additional service one can search and admire some five thousand images included in the famous Index of Christian Art
• Det Kongelige Bibliotek , Kopenhagen - online versions of several manuscript catalogues

Apart from catalogues for one or more libraries there are important repertoria for particular kinds of manuscripts:

• Bibliotheca Neerlandica Manuscripta - an online database at Leiden University , containing information about more than twenty thousand manuscripts with texts in Middle Dutch, based on the updated notices of Willem de Vreese
• Repertorium der kanonistischen Handschriften , Leipzig - a repertory started by Gero Dolezalek for medieval manuscripts with canon law texts, see also the page on medieval canon law
• Chant behind the dikes - the site of Ike de Loos (Utrecht-Tilburg) on medieval liturgical manuscripts from the Netherlands
• Musica devota - the website of Ulrike Hascher-Burger ( Amsterdam ) on the musical manuscripts of  the Devotio Moderna
• Medieval logical manuscripts , Leiden - a project of L.M. de Rijk and E.P. Bos
• JORDANUS, medieval mathematical manuscripts , Munich - a database with many thousand manuscripts, maintained by Menso Folkerts, also on a server of the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte , Berlin
• Irish Script on Screen (ISOS), Dublin - a project of several libraries concerning manuscripts with medieval Irish texts
• PhiloBiblon , Berkeley - a searchable database for manuscripts with texts from Galicia , Catalonia , Portugal and Spain

Miniatures

One should mention in particular a number of French sites for searching illuminations in medieval manuscripts:

• Mandragore, base iconographique - searching the illuminated manuscripts of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
• Liber Floridus - a search site for the illuminated manuscript at two Parisian libraries, the Mazarine and Sainte-Geneviève
• Enluminures - this site offers access to illuminated manuscripts in the major French municipal libraries
• Le Moyen Âge en lumière - images from illuminated manuscripts in France selected around several themes

And of course one can find elsewhere in Europe and America web sites with illuminated manuscripts:

• Medieval manuscripts at the Dutch Royal Library - not just from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek , but also from the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum , both in The Hague; an eminently searchable site, using Iconclass
• Digital Scriptorium , Berkeley - a site for searching images from illuminated manuscripts
• Illuminated Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford - a choice of some eighty manuscripts
• Digital catalogue of illuminated manuscripts , British Library, London - a special catalogue for illuminated manuscripts
• Illuminierte Handschriften aus Österreich - a searchable collection of illuminations from manuscripts in Austria , started by Friedrich Simader and continued by Martina Pippal

One should mention also individual manuscripts. Either the illumination or the texts can be the reason for digitalisation:

• The Utrecht Psalter - the famous Carolingian manuscript, since 1732 at Utrecht University Library [ms. 32]
• The "Dyksche handschrift" - this manuscript with the Middle Dutch animal epic "Van den vos Reynaerde" (Renard the Fox) and "Der naturen bloeme" [The flower of nature] by Jacob van Maerlant had been inaccessible for many decades [Universiteitsbibliothek Münster, N.R. 381]
• Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry - the most famous medieval Book of Hours [ Chantilly , Musée Condé, ms. 65]
• Bordesholmer Marienklage - a fifteenth century musical manuscript [Universitätsbibliothek Kiel, ms. Bordesholm 23]
• Codex Manesse - the marvellously illustrated medieval songbook [Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal Germ. 848]
• The Babylonian Talmud - the only surviving almost complete medieval manuscript [ Munich , Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 95]
• Medieval manuscripts of the socalled Rhenish mystics - digitized manuscripts at Strasbourg University Library, with texts by Eckhart, Tauler and Seuse, but this site functions awkwardly; see also my Eckhart page
• Manuscripta Mediaevalia - Manuscripts Online - a quick route for viewing digitized images of a wide variety of medieval manuscripts at Darmstadt , Heidelberg , Marburg and Fulda
• Sagnanet - medieval manuscripts and old prints with the medieval Icelandic sagas, an initiative of the National and University Library , Reykjavik , and Cornell University
• Det Kongelige Bibliotek , Kopenhagen - a fine collection of digitized medieval and later manuscripts

More links

• Palaeography, codicology, manuscripts - the uncommented but very handy list by Bob Peckham of links for palaeography, manuscripts, journals about medieval manuscripts and other link collection
• Manuscripta Mediaevalia: Links , Marburg - a useful link collection at the site of the well known German database
• Latin manuscript books before 1600 - an online version at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Munich , of Paul Oskar Kristeller's survey of manuscript catalogues (third edition, 1993)
• Institut des Recherches sur l'Histoire des Textes (IRHT), Paris-Orleans - the international centre for manuscript research and text editions with several databases on manuscripts
• Vocabulaire codicologique - a multilingual version of the book by Denis Muzerelle (IRHT) from 1985; French, English, Italian and Spanish, but no German, and for Dutch only terms on bookbinding
• Links für Handschriftenbearbeiter - this Vienna link collection presents links for many aspects of manuscript research
• Virtuelle Bibliothek-Geschichtliche Hilfswissenschaften: Handschriften und Bibliotheken - a good link collection with comments, edited at the University of Munich; see also their web page for codicology
• Mittelalterliche Handschriften - another useful links collection at the well known Erlanger Historikerseite
• Manuscrits enluminés - a fine annotated list of websites with medieval miniatures at the French portal for medieval studies Ménestrel; one should visit also their similar pages on individual manuscripts and texts, on major digitization initiatives and digitized collections
• Handschriftenlinks , Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Zeroland manuscripts links - there are some not often mentioned items in this New Zealand link collection
• Textmanuscripts - a well organized links database at the website of the antiquarian booksellers Les Enluminures, Chicago and Paris

With grateful thanks to Dr Otto Vervaart for allowing us to reproduce his links from his website http://home.hetnet.nl/~otto.vervaart/manuscripts_me_eng.htm