Posts Tagged ‘internet’

Adam Matthew Digital – A vast collection of digitized texts, including the Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor, and Armburgh papers, medieval travel writing (“journeys of famous travellers from Prester John and Marco Polo to Sir John Mandefille and John Capgreve”, with translations, maps, and “fully searchable”). Unfortunately, it costs; I could not get at the pricing structure but the site seems to be aimed at institutions. They do have a “free trial” bit, which I did not access.

Early Book Society – for the study of manuscripts and printing history”. Started by Sara Horrall and Martha Driver “out of sessions planned for” the Medieval Congress at K’zoo; started in 1987. Their site is limited, but there are a couple of interesting bits (see, e.g., the Old Spice Answer Man on libraries).

Brepols Publishers – A publisher based in Belgium, with an international reach. They are the printers/publishers for an astounding number of journals, many of which are of interest to historains, medievalists, and archaeologists.

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies – Duke University. Individual subscriptions are $38, for three issues annually. The site has no information about what periods or subjects the journal covers, so you’ll have to rely on the title.

Journal of Late Antiquity – from Johns Hopkins University. “…the first international English-language journal dedicated to the study of Late Antiquity writ large”. Individual subscriptions are $30/year (two issues), for either the print or electronic delivery.

Fifteenth Century Studies – put out regularly by Boydell & Brewer, publishers. “Fifteenth-Century Studies offers essays on diverse aspects of the period, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion.“ It seems to be $75/issue. I am not sure whether one can subscribe or purchase book-by-book / issue-by-issue. The URL delivers you to issue #34.

Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies – It offers a journal titled “Mediaeval Studies”, “…established in 1939 and from the outset its purpose has been the publication of research on the Middle Ages by scholars throughout the world, particularly research involving unedited manuscript and archival material.” Variously priced; the newest volumes are $90, and decrease to $40 for the ones printed before 1997. PIMS also publishes books, most of which are, although medieval in subject, tend to be aimed at a very particular, churchly market.

Plainsong and Medieval Music – courtesy of Cambridge Journals Online, “in association with the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society and Cantus Planus, study group of the International Musicological Society”. Back issues seem to cost $110, or $1,700 for the complete set (1992-2008). Cambridge Journals has other historical-type journals – Anglo-Saxon England, The Antiquaries Journal (mentioned in a previous post, I believe), Archaeologia, Archaeological Reports.

Viking Society for Northern Research (VSNR) – “…the world’s foremost learned society in the field of medieval Scandinavian and Northern studies.” Started as “the Orkney, Shetland and Northern Society, or the Viking Club.” A British group, although membership is apparently open to all; “…founded as an Antiquarian, Literary and Social Society.” A list of their publications. This page points to a North American sales agent at ACMRS (see previous blog entries), but when I clicked on the link, I got back a 404 Page Not Found error message. Perhaps one might instead contact Roy Rukkila, Managing Editor, ACMRS, at mrts@asu.edu

Magnum Legendarium Austriacum – or, rather, the Wikepedia article on it. At the bottom of this page are 3 links to the M.L.A. and one to the Diplomarbeit zum Thema, which seems to be a thesis on the MLA submitted for the degree of MPhil. All four of these links take you to sites in German, but damned if they don’t look interesting anyway.

SFB-Project: Visions of Community – under the auspices of Universitat Wien. “VISCOM focuses on the question how universal religions have shaped the construction of particular communities and identities in the middle ages. The project proposes a comparative approach focusing on Christian, Islamic and Buddhist examples in the course of the ‘Middle Ages’ in order to explore the interaction between religious and political ‘visions of community’. “

I have a note about one of the exhibitors at K’zoo that reads “king alfred’s notebook – ‘”the worlds most famous lost medieval book’”, with an address in South Carolina. I Googled it, and found only one reference, to the LLC registration at the South Carolina’s Secretary of State’s office. Any more information would be gladly received; I have a severe case of curiosity about a guy who’d pay for a table at K’zoo for something that might not exist.

This is the second part of my notes and comments from the 46th annual Kalamazoo Medieval Conference – web sites and journals that struck my fancy, and/or thought might be of interest to readers of this blog.

ACMRS – Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; supported/supervised/of, by, and for Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona. Usual studies-abroad programs, graduate travel awards, public programs. They also give two online courses of interest to calligraphers – an introduction to Latin Paleography, and a video course on Medieval and Renaissance Paleography. Some interesting publications, too.

AVISTA – Association Villard de Honnecourt for Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science and Art. “AVISTA is concerned to bring important contributions in medieval science, technology and art to interested readers.” They sponsor several sessions at the medieval conferences at Kalamazoo and Leeds, “…devoted to topics ranging from medieval military technology, the cloth industry, the resources of wood and stone, medieval medicine to the mechanical arts, Ars Quadratum.” Publications available.
It’s hosted by the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater, and named for “a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio of 33 sheets of parchment containing about 250 drawings dating from the 1220s/1240s, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (MS Fr 19093). The great variety of subjects (religious and secular figures suitable for sculpture, and architectural plans, elevations and details, ecclesiastical objects and mechanical devices, some with annotations), makes it difficult to determine its purpose.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villard_de_Honnecourt, accessed 6 June 2011)

Bildindex der Junst und Architektur – a site for accessing a large number of museums and images on art and architecture, the German Documents Center for Works of Art (“Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte”), with the museums spread around Europe, not just in Germany. Architecture, stained glass windows, etchings and engravings, paintings, sculpture, watercolors, mosaics, textiles…..
“Mit rund 2 Millionen Bildern zur Kunst und Architektur in 13 europäischen Ländern ist der Bildindex Ihre Datenbank für Forschung, Lehre und redaktionelle Anfragen. Sie recherchieren Bilder und Daten von rund 80 Partnern.”, which an indifferent Internet translation site (slightly edited by me) gives as “With around 2 million photographs of art and architecture in 13 European countries[, this] is the multi[site?] database for research, teaching and editorial inquiries. You can find pictures and data from approximately 80 partners [read: museums, cities, libraries, and such].”

Bildserver des IMAREAL (“IMAREAL’s image server”) – A “conceptual search engine” of material objects, themes, actions, and gestures. Very well indexed (animals, coelenterates; animals, insects; animals, mammals; animals, arachnids; animals, component…..) The index is in English, but nearly all of the rest of the site is in German. If there’s any site that makes me want to learn another foreign language, it’s this one.

British Archaeological Association – “….founded in 1843 to promote the study of archaeology, art and architecture and the preservation of our national antiquities. It encourages original research and publishes new work on art and antiquities of Roman to post-medieval date, although the art, architecture and archaeology of the Middle Ages form the core of its interests.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association is published by (Maney Publishing).

CRMH (Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales et Humanistes, The Journal of Medieval and Humanistic Studies) – Entirely in French. It is, obviously, a journal, which I suspect after a brief perusal is entirely online, and not in print. Run from the Centre de recherche en histoire européenne comparée (CRHEC), Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne. Articles in the current issue include “Idylle et récits idylliques à la fin du Moyen Âge”, and “Le Même et l’Autre, entre amour et croisade“ – and they do publish some articles in English: “Adolescence, anxiety and amusement in versions of Paris et Vienne”. They also carry, as is true of most historical journals, book reviews in each issue.
It is published through “OpenEdition…the umbrella portal for Revues.org, Hypotheses.org and Calenda, three platforms dedicated to electronic resources in the humanities and social sciences. If you wish your university to subscribe to this service and give you access to articles in downloadable formats (PDF, ePub), please visit OpenEdition Freemium presentation page.”
The CRMH I accessed on 6 June 2011 apparently allowed for some free downloads of articles in PDF; I suspect (without much proof) it may be through a URL that offers attendees at Kalamazoo free access for a limited amount of time, but cannot confirm this. On the bar at the top, there’s a button-URL for “calenda”, which takes you to a calendar of upcoming meetings, seminars, colloquia, and conferences in various social sciences. It seems to be a very comprehensive list. It certainly looks interesting.

The Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture – A relatively minor web site, one that I’m not sure I can find enough information on to give an accurate description of why they’re organized.

Council for British Archaeology – From my non-professional non-archaeological viewpoint, this site is more of a popular site for those interested in archaeology than it is one for professionals. There are links to, e.g., university departments, governmental agencies and groups, regional societies, and opportunities for fieldwork. There’s a good-sized list of publications, some of which are available online, some via “cd fiche” (a term I’ve never seen used but seems self-explanatory), and some out-of-stock, darn it: studies of North East Yorkshire archaeology, Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Beckford, Welsh industrial heritage, “environmental Archaeology in the Urban Context”….

Digital Scriptorium – “…a growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. It bridges the gap between a diverse user community and the limited resources of libraries by means of sample imaging and extensive rather than intensive cataloguing.” Hosted by the Columbia University Libraries. There are 30 participating institutions – public and private libraries, and universities, all located within the United States. There’s a basic search available; I do not know whether the problem is with my computer or the site, but I was unable to pull up some images (e.g., a search for “ships” got the bibliographic information, but no pictures of ships; a search for “antiphonals” got both bibliography and images).

The Early English Text Society (EETS) – Self-explanatory, I hope. Transcriptions of texts from King Alfred, Aelfric, Bishop Wulfstan, “all” surviving medieval drama; most of the Middle English romances; much of John Gower, Thomas Hoccleve and William Caxton….”In all the Society has now published some 475 volumes”, and nearly all of them are still in print. If you want primary sources in a form that can be regularly used and allow for notes being written in the margin, here they are.

Encyclopedia of the Crusades – A site of sites; not only the encyclopedia, but also pointers to primary and secondary sources, a bibliography, a link to links on “Islam, Judaism, and the Crusading Movement”, a link to academic links (employment, conferences, “academic watchdog groups”…) and others.

English Heritage – the folks who preserve and protect a lot of English historical buildings and grounds – castles, gardens, Hadrian’s Wall, Roman sites, prehistorical sites. Many, many, many publications. If you do any traveling in England as a tourist, you’ll run across something run by E.H. Annual membership for an adult is £46, but I am not sure whether or not this includes the EHHR (see below); I doubt it, but one never knows.
They also publish the English Heritage Historical Review, printed by Maney Publishing. The EHHR “publishes discoveries made through the documentation, surveying, excavation, scientific examination and historical interpretation of English Heritage properties. It is supported by the apparatus scholasticus necessary for verification, endorsement and further investigation. At the same time it is lavishly illustrated and produced to the highest production standards.”

Glasgow Centre for Medieval and Renaissance StudiesS, University of Glasgow – There are links to its special collections, which contain “some 10,000 printed books and over 600 manuscripts”, fully searchable.

Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) – Originally founded to make copies (photographic, microfiche, microfilm, all the way up to modern digital) of every manuscript they could find, they’ve recently broadened their mandate. Their library-of-facsimiles is currently a bit over 100,000 items. In 2004 they also launched something called Vivarium, an “online digital object database allows users to browse and search for images and their accompanying metadata”; it consists “mostly of art and manuscript images from HMML’s own holdings”. Good source – and they accept donations to help continue their mission. It’s located at, and run under the general auspices of, St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, a Benedictine college.

MPRG Research Strategy and Agenda – “A Revised Research Strategy and Agenda for Post-Roman Ceramic Studies in Britain”, under the aegis of English Heritage. Much of the site is being modified and/or under construction, but there are some useful bits – a list of ceramic reference collections, for example.

Opuscula – “Short Texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance”, published by “Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, specializing in short texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. We seek single-witness editions of a broad range of pre-modern texts including but not limited to literary and philosophical works, letters, charters, court documents, and notebooks.” As it was organized only this year (2011), it doesn’t have much in its archives yet.

Powell’s-Chicago medieval section – This is the sister store to one of the nation’s largest independent bookstores, the one, true, original Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. In particular, they have a sub-site with a selection of medieval books. This is the kind of bookstore that we want to grow up to own.

Renaissance Society of America – It covers 1300 to 1650; the organization is 57 years old and counting. Good society, good publications; the flagship journal is the Renaissance Quarterly.

ShelfLife – “The Bulletin of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence”. The RGME was started in the late 1980’s as a research group at University of Cambridge/Corpus Christi College. It became official in 1990, moved to Princeton (“mainly”) and started publishing a regular journal in 2006.

Sixteenth Century Studies and Conference – An international history-related group, obviously, which for the purposes of this group covers ca. 1450 through ca. 1660. Their journal is the Sixteenth Century Journal; membership also includes “discounted access to the Iter bibliographic databases”. Annual conferences, with this year’s (2011) being in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.

Society for Medieval Archaeology – British. Produces an annual journal (“Medieval Archaeology”, printed by Maney Publishing.) and a semi-annual newsletter, hosts biennial conferences, on things archaeological. Varying membership rates; personal memberships are $74, registered students are $47.

Finnish Medieval Archaology Society, aka Suomen Keskiajan Arkeologian Seura – Sällskapet för Medeltidsarkeologi i Finland (in English, The Society for Medieval Archaeology in Finland)– Publishers of Archaeologia Medii Aevi Finlandiae. A Finnish archaeological group, which offers some interesting books, mostly on castles but also on other artifacts, all of which look quite interesting.

Museum of Printing – Based in North Andover, Massachusetts, USA. Several newsletters, occasional special events (currently (mid-2011) they’re hosting a Typecase Design competition, and a Printing Arts Fair in mid-June. Good collection, good library (including the drawings for the Mergenthaler Font Library, all 300,000 of them), Ludlow Typograph matrices, Intertype Photosetter fonts, and a collection centered on machinery and products. A bit more focused than other groups listed here, nevertheless worthwhile for printing-press enthusiasts like me. They also have two neat-o downloadable PDF’s, one on the various kinds of printing presses, from the Gutenberg Press through the Nichle Vertical auotmated press of 1947, and one on the various kinds of printing (lithography, intaglio, movable type….)

Journals not otherwise mentioned above:
the Antiquaries Journal, published by Cambridge University Press for the Society of Antiquaries of London. Print and online versions. The price I have is $192/year.

Please excuse the construction. Our kind Technical Department is in the process of adding both a link to our FaceBook page (username: Potboiler Press, as if it would be anything else), and a link to, errr, links. The latter we hope will list web pages that show stuff being made, or useful historical sites (there seems to be an explosion of digitized medieval books, for example), and so forth. It will take some time before everything’s laid out exactly and elegantly.

In addition, our phone lines are still static-filled, the Internet connection is woefully slow when it’s working, and our computer has developed a wonky network card. It has not been a good couple of weeks. While we are still able to take orders over the website, there may be a day or two added onto Order Fulfillment during bad weather.

The computer is in for repairs. We have ordered a T1 line, which should be in by the end of May (and if it isn’t, There Will Be Words with the company involved). We are doing the opposite of rain dances for continued perfect weather. Or, rather, rain-only-at-night dances. (There’s been a drought here for the last three years or so, and most earnestly do we not want that again.)