In Context

Obviously, the Latin language provided a huge background for medieval language, literature, and culture. It was the tie that bound so many cultures and countries together. It was the language of diplomats and that of intellectuals, who in turn controlled literacy and literature amongst the people.

References to history and older literature is often assumed natural in medieval literature, and those of us without a classical education feel bereft. In the next two posts I aim to give you basic resources that will allow you to find those references easily and learn more about the foundations of the medieval literature through the Latin language.

Gospels

Bibles in the Middle Ages were usually written in Latin, although translation into common (vernacular) languages was becoming popular as people became more literate.

The Lindisfarne Gospels
The British Library’s “Turning the Pages” display on the Lindisfarne Gospels has shown the immense progress technology has afforded manuscript studies. There has been an incredible amount of research done on these gospels; here is a website that provides some self-tutorials about them. These 8th century gospels are in Latin, but over the Latin script there is what is called a gloss--an explanation or translating assistance in a common language, in this case Old English.

‘The Corpus Irish Gospels’
These gospels are from Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. The scans of this 12th century manuscript are in high resolution and is very simply decorated. The department of Early Manuscripts at Oxford University has many medieval manuscripts that are worth looking at, some of them scientific texts.

Codices Electronici Sangallenses
The Library of St. Gallen has a number of bibles in their collection, which can be found by their search engine--unfortunately, I can’t link directly to them here because of the frames on the website. They are easily found, though, as most of them are labelled “Bible” followed by the texts in the volume.

Latin Vulgate Bible Online
This website exists to help you read the Bible (Jerome’s Vulgate) in Latin; it has search capabilities, two English translations, and tools for saving phrases and verses for later use. It would be a good idea to bookmark this website if you don’t intend to learn Latin seriously but are still interested in being able to recognise specific passages within a manuscript.

The Psalter

Psalms are songs of praise, and 150 (or 151!) of them make up a single book in the Old Testament of the Bible, and one which was often recited by monks and nuns throughout the week. Like books of hours, books of psalms (psalters) could be personal objects but unlike books of hours, psalters were also used in church services or by individuals in a professional capacity.

“Glimpses of Medieval Life”: The Luttrell Psalter
This project by the British Library places selected images online in very high resolution with a good deal of background information. In particular, the Luttrell Psalter is illustrated with figures of every day medieval life; since we normally see aristocratic fashions (just as you would looking in expensive magazines today) this is very unusual and valuable to people who want to know what it was like to live in the Middle Ages.

Digital Scriptorium
This site is a good resource to find images of psalters, but since there are so many the link will take you to the search page. Type in “psalter” in the “Basic Search: Search all” box and see what you come up with!

Codices Electronici Sangallenses
The Library of Saint Galen is another excellent resource; use their search function to find psalters that have been put online. The images and descriptions are of good quality and this library has the advantage of having many completely digitalized manuscripts.

Parallel Latin/English Psalter
This psalter is one that is purely hypertext, but remains an excellent resource because Jerome’s Vulgate text of the Bible was the standard translation from Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew during the Middle Ages. If you have trouble looking at a page of a manuscript, sometimes it is useful to look at a standard text to try and make sense of the script before you.

Viewing Medieval Manuscripts Online

When people first see a medieval manuscript, often the first things they notice are how difficult (or impossible) they are to read, how different the figures and illustrations are from modern art, and how distant they seem from our world of iPods, magazines, and airplanes. They are, after all, written in ancient languages, illustrated with a heavy emphasis on symbolism that seems obscure to us, and even written with different materials than we use today.

Reading small, sometimes cryptic descriptions on display cards at museums and libraries is a difficult way to be introduced to manuscripts. To those without a ready interest in history or literature it can seem useless and impossible to even try to understand the past by peering through glass panes at illegible scribbling.

Whatever it seemed like before, the world of museums and manuscripts is changing: the internet has created thousands of new opportunities for students and professionals alike to study the past through art, literature, and science. Now, you can take advantage of these opportunities simply by surfing around the internet and being interested in what you see. Today, you do not have to pay a lot of money to learn how to understand ancient cultures: you simply have to know where to find the information you want to know.

To help you start reading medieval manuscripts, I’ve put together two sets of links: one on picking up some basic Latin and the other on the study of ancient handwriting (palaeography). For a general overview, here are some links to other tutorials or digital projects introducing you to the study of medieval manuscripts. Not all manuscripts are written in Latin, but many of them are: feel free to skip that if you don’t need it. I wouldn’t try memorizing everything about palaeography either; just get a taste of it and come back when you have questions!

Introductions to Palaeography

“Palaeography means, in the strict sense, the study of ancient handwriting, and its basic objects are these: first, to read ancient texts with accuracy; secondly, to date and localize their handwriting.”
--Julian Brown

Palaeography can be an immensely challenging and rewarding study. With the advent of the internet, it has become a field more easily accessible to the general public. Below are some articles, online texts, and interactive tutorials to introduce you to palaeography.

I. Medieval Writing: History, Heritage and Data Source
This website contains tutorials (you’ll need at least Flash 5 for some of them) that involve real manuscripts from the 4th-15th centuries. There are also many introductory level articles, glossaries, and an excellent set of links to other resources.

II. Palaeography: reading old handwriting 1500-1800
The UK National Archives also has a Palaeography tutorial, but it should be noted that the examples are not medieval but renaissance and early modern texts. However, using this tutorial provides an good introductory basis for studying palaeography.

III. Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections
These pages contain a variety of images, organized by script and accompanied by a glossary and an extensive bibliography .

IV. A. Cappelli’s "Dictionary of Latin and Italian Abbreviations"
Cappelli’s Dizionario is a standard work on palaeographical abbreviations. If you intend to work on medieval manuscripts, Latin abbreviations are very common and this text is very useful.

V. M. P. Brown’s “Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms”
M. P. Brown is one of the Curator’s of Western Manuscripts at the British Library, and has written widely and well about palaeography. This is her glossary on palaeographical terms and it is a popular reference book at universities.

There are also various other explorations of codicology (the study of the codex, or book) and palaeography attached to specific projects, like the Aberdeen Bestiary, the Ormulum Project, the Nero A.X. Project, Labyrinth, and the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. And this is just to name a few!

Learning Latin

Latin was the language of the scholarly world for a very long time, and many medieval manuscripts are written in Latin. If you’re interested in learning to read Latin on any level, you might like these web sites.

I. Oxford Latin Course: Latin Links
Cornell College provides a wide variety of online exercises for learning Classical Latin, from flash-cards and derivative lists to trivia and easy-reading texts. This site has a well-organized set of online resources that are useful for teaching yourself Latin on any level.

II. Latin for Mountain Men
From professor emeritus of engineering Dr. James B. Calvert, here is a self-professed “short course in practical Latin”; or, as he titles it, “Latin for Mountain Men (and Women)”. Written in a conversational style, this tutorial provides a minimum of memorization activities.

III. Lacus Curtius: Latin Inscriptions
On this site is recorded a number of Roman and Etruscan inscriptions in Latin. If you’d like to try them, there are tutorials (levels easy, medium, and hard) to help you decipher these inscriptions. This site is run by a professor, but one who only studies epigraphy as a hobby, so it isn’t professional even though it does have good tutorials for beginners.

IV. Latin News & Audio Files
Ever wanted to hear Latin spoken? YLE Radio 1: Nuntii Latini, based in Finland, provides a weekly broadcast of international news in Classical Latin. You can also find their podcast on iTunes. Statio Radiophonica Vaticana, the radio station of the Vatican city, also hosts a news service that provides .mp3 and Real Player clips. Based in the German city of Bremen, Radio Bremen hosts a world news service in Latin that also includes video clips.

V. Beginner’s Latin and Advanced Latin
The UK National Archives has two tutorials set up on their site geared to help viewers read charters, wills, and other legal documents in medieval Latin. Medieval Latin differs from Classical Latin and can be a challenge to those who have begun to learn Classical Latin. However, the “Beginner’s Latin” tutorial is a good introduction to studying Latin and will help familiarize you with the language on a broad scale. Plus, you get to start translating real documents right away!

VI. Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges
Once an old-fashioned paper-and-ink edition, Allen & Greenough’s book on Latin grammar has been put online at the Perseus Digital Library of Tufts University. This book is an excellent resource and a solid academic reference.

VII. The Latinitas Foundation
This is on the Vatican website and promotes the use and study of Latin by a variety of means. Included are a competition for Latin poetry and prose, a scholarly journal that publishes articles in Latin, a lexicon of neologisms (yes, there are words for"mini-golf" and "basket-ball" in Latin!), and other learning opportunities. Though focused on a more advanced Latin student, this site is nevertheless a fascinating display of Latin used by our contemporaries.

VIII. Latinitas Viva: Discovering Live Latin
Not being able to find a "who we are" or "contact" page, I won't vouch for the scholarly nature of the webpage save to note that it has links to programs that encourage the learning of Latin that I do not include on the rest of the website but are nevertheless quite valuable. This website, too, hosts a world news page in Latin called Ephemeris, which also publishes to the internet a wide variety of interesting things, including the stories of Sherlock Holmes . . . also in Latin!