National Libraries

Countries often see manuscripts as cultural icons and as national treasures. Books were once incredibly valuable objects, made by hand and with very expensive materials: aside from their monetary value, they carried with them a national identity. To simply possess a shelf full of books was an amazing thing. National libraries still value their medieval manuscripts, but are now trying to save them from deterioration over time and trying to make them available to the public (something very rare, and certainly impossible for their original viewers).

The National Library of Scotland
In addition to more modern manuscripts, this library contains the Murthly Hours (a devotional book of hours) and the Auchinleck Manuscript (lyrics, stories, poetry and prose) reproduced in full, with accompanying commentary, transcription.

The British Library
This library has a conservation and publication program that has made very important manuscripts available to the general public in a display setting that appeals to many. Their “Turning the Pages” program simulates actually turning the pages of a manuscript, and transcriptions, translations, and commentary are available at the click of a button. The images of these manuscripts are high-res and detailed, professional photographs.

Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (The National Library of Wales)
This library has made available numerous selections and some whole manuscripts in a number of languages, including books of Taliesin, of the Mabinogi, an edition of Chaucer, a miscellany in Middle English, and several historical chronicles. These manuscripts have their own descriptive pages that put them in a historical context.

Bibliothéque Nationale de France
France’s national library contains selections from many medieval manuscripts, including that of Jean of Berry’s book of hours and Gaston Phoebus’ Book of the Hunt, as well as Froissart’s 15th century historical chronicles, an earlier atlas, a scientific work, and a breviary.

University Libraries

Universities hold many of the manuscripts and manuscript digitalisation projects currently on the internet. I’ll only introduce a few here, since there are so many, but hopefully from these sites you will be able to search for others. You can also search for university official web sites, navigate to the library section, and look for special projects or collections. Often you will find more useful information this way than you will by using Google, Yahoo, or even another university resource page.

Again, I only present a few of these sites to you in these articles, but I will try and not duplicate too many of them--if a site appears more than once, you know it must be good!

University of Southampton
The Wessex Parallel WebTexts are hosted on their site, developed by one of their faculty and partly funded by them. This is the excellent digitalization project of the Harley Lyrics.

University of Michigan
This site hosts the Middle English Compendium, which contains not only a huge section of Middle English Prose and Verse but also a very valuable Middle English Dictionary that would be of help when you begin to read manuscripts.

University of Virginia
More Middle English texts can be found here in the University of Virginia’s Middle English Collection--most of these texts are published in this American mirror on behalf of the Oxford University Text Archive; another academic connection!

Georgetown University
This university houses the widely-acclaimed Labyrinth, a search engine with many links and resources relating to medieval studies. Many of the manuscripts you see linked from this website can be found using this search engine.

University of Rochester
The Rossell Hope Robbins Library is hosted and maintained by the University of Rochester--this is where we find the Camelot Project, the Robin Hood Project, the Medieval Alexander Project, and the TEAMS Middle English Texts.

Transcriptions

Transcripts tend to be useful for printing, for editing, and for gaining insight by the commentary or annotation that usually accompanies a simple reproduction. Unfortunately, the nature of a transcription is that often a transcriber will have two possible interpretations for a single hand-written word on a manuscript, and will have to choose one of the two. Sometimes a transcriber does not even see more than one possibility.

Therefore, keep in mind that transcriptions are colored by the view of the scholarly editor. It is good to use more than one edition of any piece of literature that you are working on--in fact, it is considered good scholarship to do so.

The Rossell Hope Robbins Library
This library hosts many texts divided into different projects which are accompanied by graphics and criticism, with introductions to the works. These projects include The Camelot Project (on Arthurian studies), The Robin Hood Project, The Medieval Alexander Project (about Alexander the Great during the Middle Ages), and TEAMS Middle English Texts (TEAMS is The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages; there are a variety of texts here).

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
This site provides a basic introduction to many Western religious texts, but the real unique thing about this site is that you can download texts in formats that are supported by iPods, palm pilots, and simple text-readers for easy transport on electronic devices. There is no annotation or commentary, but there is author information available on most texts.

Decameron Web
Boccaccio’s “Decameron” is a very long work in Italian, but has been translated and transcribed here for the benefit of student. It is accompanied by what the authors call “a growing hypermedia archive of materials dedicated to Boccaccio’s masterpiece”. There are articles on history, society, religion, the arts, the plague, and numerous other resources.

The Luminarium: Anthology of Middle English Literature (1350-1485)
This anthology has a variety of transcriptions and is organised by author. Accompanying the works of these authors are criticism tailored to the specific work or author, links to discussion forums, bookstores that sell these works, and other options--not all of these options accompany every work, but each work is provided amply for an introduction.

Stories & Fiction

Stories of adventure were called “romances” in the Middle Ages--a word very nearly divorced from the definition we think of today. Along with romances, there were stories of the lives of saints (called vitae), allegories, and song lyrics--a huge variety when you see them as a whole, but unfortunately not too much of them have been put online. This is a very small selection of an enormous amount of literature.

The Auchinleck Manuscript
The National Library of Scotland has placed this entire manuscript on display online, with commentary, translation, and transcription. There is also a history of the manuscript available and an extensive bibliography, should you be interested in reading further. The website offers search capabilities, a glossary, and a lexicon. If you are new to Middle English or to manuscript studies, I recommend you start with this site.

Wessex Parallel WebTexts: Medieval Lyrics
This site hosts translations, transcriptions, and digitised images of the Harley Lyrics and several other brief pieces of Middle English literature. There is an introduction to grammar, a section on translating Middle English, and notes on technical terms. There is also an index of first lines, for your convenience. If you are interested in medieval song lyrics, this is an excellent site from which to start.

The Bodleian Library: Early Manuscripts
Manuscripts such as “Piers Plowman” (an allegory take about a farmer named Piers who has a dream full of adventures whose morals apply to his time) and Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” have been put online here in full, but with no transcription, translation, or commentary. However, if you are interested in studying these pieces, there is an enormous amount of literature about them in other places online or in your local library.

The National Library of Wales: the Mabinogi
The Mabinogion is a collection of mythological tales in Middle Welsh that have a partially Arthurian tinge to them but stand aloof from other Arthurian tales by story elements that are often unfamiliar. These manuscripts are in Middle Welsh without transcript, translation, or commentary, but there are translations online which you can use in conjunction with this project.

The National Library of Wales: A Middle English Miscellany
This manuscript is full of a variety of things, like the Auchinleck Manuscript from the National Library of Scotland, from Arthurian poetry to a treatise on grafting trees. Although accompanied by an introduction there is no transcription or translation readily available online. However, since some of the script is quite legible it might be worth it to challenge yourself by trying to read it straight from the page!