Virtual Library Of Medieval Manuscripts Created

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Science Daily

Google "Edward the Confessor" and you'll get page after page of links to biographies of this 11th-century English king, to Westminster Abbey, which he founded and where he is buried, and to the Magna Carta, which was partly inspired by laws enacted during his 24-year reign.


But a completely digitized manuscript of the oldest surviving Anglo-Norman history of the king does not turn up — at least on the first 20 search pages — even though Cambridge University painstakingly scanned the sumptuously illustrated manuscript in 2003.

That history, "The Life of King Edward the Confessor," probably written by a Benedictine monk named Matthew Paris sometime between 1250 and 1260, is not alone. Somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 rare and precious medieval manuscripts have been scanned over the past decade into formats that could be studied over the Internet if only scholars knew they existed and knew where to find them.

"Searching for medieval manuscripts gets you millions of hits, most of which have nothing to do with manuscripts, and when they do, they usually feature only images of a single page rather than the entire book," said Matthew Fisher, an assistant professor of English at UCLA. "Since finding these great projects is so tough, they're functionally invisible."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090210161916.htm

[Morning Dew]

1. based on your post

I googled '"edward the confessor" cambridge university project'
and got to it.

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:d14FRE0lxHkJ:www.lib.cam.ac.uk/digital_image_collections/+%22Edward+the+Confessor%22+Cambridge+University+project&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us


but, you gotta know exactly what you're looking for, I'd guess, to get there.

functionally invisible is about right.

[Silver Gaia]

4. Fantastic! Thank you! n/t

[aquart]

2. And look at THIS:

<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080923140838.htm>

I'm salivating over it. I have some words I want to dig out of that data base. Screw the OED!

[1776Forever]

7. I have always been intrigued with the King James Version language of the bible

Hope this will help me out some - interesting information! Thanks!

[EFerrari]

3. I gave myself carpal tunnel scanning Shakespeare in the early 90s.

If even earlier docs are now digital, that's wonderful!

[aquart]

10. And of course, you use Open Source Shakespeare for your current searches?

I love this site:

<http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/>


The only place on the web that's more fun is UPenn's magnificent online Sumerian/Akkadian/Emesal/English/cuneiform/ dictionary.

"liberal" is from Sumerian libis (Akkadian libbu) meaning core, heart, anger, family, courage.

[libnnc]

5. bookmarked, shared and saved

I'm not a Medievalist but I have friends who are.

:woohoo:

[Ghost Dog]

6. Excellent. Let this include even earlier works written in Arabic,

(Toledo School) and beyond...

Edit: At present I see languages listed: http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu/languages_list.php

Anglo-Norman
Cornish
English
Latin
Middle English
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Irish
Italian
Middle Irish
Old English
Old High German
Old Irish
Middle Cornish
Middle Dutch
Middle French
Middle High German
Old French
Old Icelandic
Welsh

[Book Lover]

8. Very good

Medievalists are actually very strong on tech; this is a welcome development.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Eeeeeexcellent.

We may actually reach a point where no document, once converted into electronic form, can ever be really lost. No more 'lost libraries'.

(This should sound familiar to Charles Stross fans.)