Digitizing Medieval Archives
  • Introduction
  • Overview of the Course
  • Assignments
  • Lead a seminar
  • Readings
  • Week 1 & 2 - Setting Up
    • Signing Up
    • Using Twitter
    • Twitter Strategies
    • Twitter Abbreviations
  • Week 3 - Omeka
    • Dublin Core
  • Week 4 - Github
    • Markdown
    • Github
    • Turning Github into a website
    • Markdown II (Optional)
  • Week 5 - Writing Supports
    • Your first transcription
    • Getting prepared for Transkribus
  • Week 6 - Palæography
    • Distinguishing Late Medieval Scripts
    • Handwriting Analysis Tools
    • Installing Medieval Unicode
    • IRL Abbreviations
  • Week 7 - Abbreviations
    • Transcribing with Transkribus
    • Transcribing
    • Java 8
  • Week 8 - Codicology
    • Codicological Spreadsheet
  • Week 9 - Liturgical Genres
    • Medieval Liturgy - Basic Bibliography
  • Week 10 - Cataloguing
    • Template for Folio Cataloguing
  • Week 11 - Workday
  • Week 12 - Whetting your Digital Appetite
  • Week 13 - The Theory of the Digital
    • Github Project Boards
  • Week 14 - The Promise of DH
    • Criteria for Evaluating DH Projects
  • Week 15 - Capturing Manuscripts
    • How to take photos of documents
    • Image File Formats
  • Week 16 - IIIF
    • Our IIIF Images
    • Understanding IIIF Image Presentation
    • Using IIIF Manifests
  • Week 17 - IIIF Annotations
    • Annotations in Mirador
    • Annotations with Transkribus
  • Week 18 - Online Exhibits
  • Week 19 - TEI
    • Look at a TEI folio description
    • Digital Latin Library
    • TEI export from Transkribus
  • Week 20 - Accessibility and Longevity
  • Week 21 - Work
  • Week 22 - Work
  • Week 23 - Presentations I
  • Week 24 - Presentations II
  • Week 25 - End of the Line
  • About
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  1. Week 6 - Palæography

Distinguishing Late Medieval Scripts

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Last updated 6 years ago

At Carleton we have a number of late medieval folios and manuscripts - all dating from the thirteenth-century to the sixteenth century. You goal is to identify key criteria to discern the characteristics of the script of your folio so that you can begin to understand its time and place of origin.

Your starting point should be a blog post by Yvonne Seale (follow her on Twitter) entitled, "". It lists loads of good resources, including , self-described as intended for "Unpuzzling difficult Latin readings in medieval manuscripts" (i.e. gives you most likely potential readings from the letters you can read).

Checklist for identifying late medieval scripts

Instead of putting together something here, I will point you to the excellent work done elsewhere online:

  • (aeography): .

  • (but haven't figured out what to do with this yet)

General tutorials on scripts key characteristics can be accessed at these sites:

  • revamped virtual palaeography school, the which provides an introduction to the Latin, Greek and Arabic traditions

  • a series of transcription exercises are available on an Interactive Album of Mediaeval Palaeography. This allows students to read and examine examples of scripts from the seventh to the seventeenth century. The site was originally developed in French, but now (for the most part) available in English.

  • And this French language (album of palaeographical examples) used for teaching students at the École des chartes is very useful in that it provides images, transcriptions, translations and then a palaeographical commentary (albeit all in French).

The standard for palaeographical analysis is found in the Catalogue des manuscrits datée, an international association for palaeographical analysis based on manuscripts (which can be precisely dated. Hardly interested in the modern world, their 1990s era website offers a of current publications that would be useful to consult for various national hands. The linked and are attempting to help move the CMD into the 21st century.

A of helpful links compiled by Dominique Stutzman on palaeography (in French)

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Palaeography of Medieval Manuscripts
Enigma
Classification of Medieval Handwritings in Latin Script
Late Medieval English Scribes
Digital Pal
Digital Resource and Database of Palaeography, Manuscripts and Diplomatic
Oriflamms
vHMML
site
dossier
list
Oriflamms
Classification of Medieval Handwritings in Latin Script
page