The BVMM is a French-language resource that serves as a clearing house for images and data on medieval manuscripts held in institutions in Europe. Institutions range from municipal libraries and religious houses up to major research and university libraries across continental Europe. Images can sometimes be from microfilm, black and white, or in full color.
Archives
Global Medieval Sourcebook
“The Global Medieval Sourcebook (GMS) is an open access teaching and research tool. It offers a flexible online display for the parallel viewing of medieval texts in their original language and in new English translations, complemented by new introductory materials.
The GMS spans one thousand years (600-1600) of literary production around the world. It contains short texts of broad interdisciplinary interest in a variety of genres, almost all of which have not previously been translated into English.”
Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project
Cloth and clothing have been integral to life for every person since civilization began.
In the Middle Ages dress was an identifier of occupation, status, gender and ethnicity; textiles ranged through opulent, symbolic, utilitarian and recycled. Cloth production and international trade constituted a major sector of the economy of medieval Britain.
Evidence for medieval textiles and clothing is sought in diverse academic disciplines: archaeology, archaeological textiles, art history, economic history, literature, languages.
The vocabulary of the various languages spoken and written in the British Isles is documented in different specialist dictionaries, yet geographical proximity and interaction through labour and trade would argue that this evidence should be categorised and analysed together.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council made an award of £765,576 within the Research Grants (Standard) Scheme to fund a 5-year Project to undertake a trans-disciplinary study with the purpose of producing an analytical corpus of medieval dress and textiles terminology of the British Isles in the form of a searchable database, innovatively illustrated.
At its centre was the assembly and examination of textiles/clothing lexis in the early languages of Britain (Old and Middle English; Welsh, Old Irish and minor Celtic languages; Anglo-Norman/French, Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norse), investigating the genesis and subsequent development of the vocabulary.
The terms and their citations from both documentary and literary texts have been analysed in awareness of surviving textiles/dress accessories and graphic images in medieval art.
From the reviewer:
This website represents an ambitious project – “lexis” being the total stock of words in a language – in this case we are looking at words specific to the British Isles. The sections that focus on words are the best – the Dictionaries tab and the Search the Database are useful and provide data. The Gallery tab provides detailed photographs. The Research tab leads to interesting books – they are mostly dated from 2006 -2012, however.
Online Medieval Sources Bibliography
Recovering the Earliest English Language in Scotland: Evidence from place-names
Recovering the Earliest English Language in Scotland is a project that aims to uncover Old English place names in southern Scotland. Old English is the predecessor to both Middle English and Scots, and the project relies upon place names to provide evidence of the early Northumbrian dialect of the language. As of 2020, the database includes a list of over 500 place names in southern Scotland derived from Old English. Users can view the list of places alphabetically, by map, or through advanced searching for keywords and other salient qualities. Places can be displays on a map and frequently include a description of the place-name in addition to bibliography where available.
Users can download all project data through its API, and all data is made available under a Creative Commons license. One can also find a glossary of early place terms in addition to links to other projects with similar goals.
Saints in Scottish Place-Names
Saints in Scottish Place-Names is a research project published by the University of Glasgow that seeks to catalog all the place names in Scotland derived from saints. The majority of the over 13,000 place names cataloged derive from the medieval period and from the many historical languages of Scotland, including Norse, Scots, Latin, and Gaelic. Users are able to search by either place name or saint’s name in addition to a more robust advanced search. Further, users may view a list of places and saints. Individual entries include the place-name, saint, and the source that first lists the place-name. The project also provides a map on which users may see the hagiotoponyms overlaid.
All information on the site is provided free of charge with citation.