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Medieval Manuscripts at Wilson Special Collections Library: Reference Sources at UNC Libraries
A guide to early manuscript collections and manuscript research at Wilson Library
Wilson Library MS 92, leaf 1r
Resources for Researching Manuscripts
On this page, you will find additional reference sources found at UNC libraries to support you in your manuscript research, with a particular focus on paleography reference sources. These books will help you decipher handwriting in different languages and learn more about the abbreviations used in medieval and early modern manuscripts.
Below, the books are organized by language as follows:
- Latin
- English
- French
- Italian
- Spanish
Medieval Latin Manuscripts & Paleography
Lexicon abbreviaturarum : dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane usate nelle carte e codici specialmente del Medio-Evo, riprodotte con oltre 14000 segni incisi, con l'aggiunta di uno studio sulla brachigrafia medioevale, un prontuario di sigle epig by Call Number: Z111 .C24 1990ISBN: 8820311003Publication Date: 1990
Latin Palaeography by
This work, by the greatest living authority on medieval palaeography, offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date account in any language of the history of Latin script. It also contains a detailed account of the role of the book in cultural history from antiquity to the Renaissance, which outlines the history of book illumination. Designed as a textbook, it contains a full and updated bibliography. Because the volume sets the development of Latin script in its cultural context, it also provides an unrivalled introduction to the nature of medieval Latin culture. It will be used extensively in the teaching of latin palaeography, and is unlikely to be superseded.
ISBN: 0511809921Publication Date: 2015-03-05
Medieval Latin by
Organized with the assistance of an international advisory committee of medievalists from several disciplines, Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide is a new standard guide to the Latin language and literature of the period from c. A.D. 200 to 1500. It promises to be indispensable as a handbook in university courses in Medieval Latin and as a point of departure for the study of Latin texts and documents in any of the fields of medieval studies.
Comprehensive in scope, the guide provides introductions to, and bibliographic orientations in, all the main areas of Medieval Latin language, literature, and scholarship. Part One consists of an introduction and sizable listing of general print and electronic reference and research tools. Part Two focuses on issues of language, with introductions to such topics as Biblical and Christian Latin, and Medieval Latin pronunciation, orthography, morphology and syntax, word formation and lexicography, metrics, prose styles, and so on. There are chapters on the Latin used in administration, law, music, commerce, the liturgy, theology and philosophy, science and technology, and daily life. Part Three offers a systematic overview of Medieval Latin literature, with introductions to a wide range of genres and to translations from and into Latin. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography of fundamental works--texts, lexica, studies, and research aids.
This guide satisfies a long-standing need for a reference tool in English that focuses on medieval latinity in all its specialized aspects. It will be welcomed by students, teachers, professional latinists, medievalists, humanists, and general readers interested in the role of Latin as the learned lingua franca of western Europe. It may also prove valuable to reference librarians assembling collections concerned with Latin authors and texts of the postclassical period.
ISBN: 0813208416Publication Date: 1996-12-01
English Manuscripts & Paleography
Early drama, art, and music documents : a paleography handbook by
There are few experiences as discouraging to a researcher trained in art history, drama, music, folk arts, or social history as the first encounter with an original medieval or Renaissance document. Despite Satan's claim, there is little comfort in the company of others who are miserable, but it may be comforting to know that many untrained researchers have learned to read original documents without formal instruction or years of practice. While some of the skills of a professional paleographer-the ability to identify various transitional hands, localize regional variations, or date documents by their handwriting, for instance-do require considerable training, a researcher can learn on his or her own to make some sense of a manuscript with little help on the way letters were formed, on standard abbreviations and formulaic constructions, and on the sheer need to practice transcription. Wasson here provides the basic tools necessary to transcribe documents, without regard for the historical development of alphabets, letter forms, and the like. This manual will be of great interest to scholars of the arts in need of a guide for their journeys into the archives.
ISBN: 1879288338Publication Date: 1993-07-01
Opening up Middle English Manuscripts by
This deeply informed and lavishly illustrated book is a comprehensive introduction to the modern study of Middle English manuscripts. It is intended for students and scholars who are familiar with some of the major Middle English literary works, such as The Canterbury Tales, Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, and the romances, mystical works or cycle plays, but who may not know much about the surviving manuscripts. The book approaches these texts in a way that takes into account the whole manuscript or codex--its textual and visual contents, physical state, readership, and cultural history. Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts also explores the function of illustrations in fashioning audience response to particular authors and their texts over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Linda Olson, and Maidie Hilmo--scholars at the forefront of the modern study of Middle English manuscripts--focus on the writers most often taught in Middle English courses, including Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, the Gawain Poet, Thomas Hoccleve, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, highlighting the specific issues that shaped literary production in late medieval England. Among the topics they address are the rise of the English language, literacy, social conditions of authorship, early instances of the "Alliterative Revival," women and book production, nuns' libraries, patronage, household books, religious and political trends, and attempts at revisionism and censorship. Inspired by the highly successful study of Latin manuscripts by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (also published by Cornell), this book demonstrates how the field of Middle English manuscript studies, with its own unique literary and artistic environment, is changing modern approaches to the culture of the book.
ISBN: 9780801450532Publication Date: 2012-09-18
French Manuscripts & Paleography
Dictionnaire de Paléographie Française by
De la fin du Moyen Age a la Revolution, la facon d'ecrire le francais a beaucoup evolue, et le trace des lettres encore plus rapidement que l'orthographe ou la grammaire. Pour lire les sources originales de l'histoire de France, de la charte royale au plus humble registre paroissial, il est indispensable de maitriser certains codes et certaines regles: c'est ce qu'enseigne la paleographie. Le Dictionnaire de paleographie s'adresse a un public nombreux et varie: etudiants, genealogistes, universitaires, historiens confirmes ou debutants, amateurs d'histoire locale ou nationale. Concu comme un ouvrage de base, il s'adresse aussi bien a l'erudit qu'au simple curieux. Plus commode qu'un manuel, il est le compagnon ideal du chercheur en salle de lecture. Il se laisse egalement feuilleter avec plaisir: comme tout dictionnaire, il offre un tresor d'associations de mots et d'images, de decouvertes inattendues. Plus de 2 000 definitions, 10 000 exemples et 12 000 illustrations: la paleographie est d'abord un plaisir visuel. Certains mots font encore l'objet de planches particulieres: autre, faire, icelui, Jehan, maitre, pour, present, que Il ne s'agit en aucun cas d'un dictionnaire de mots rares! Ce sont au contraire les termes les plus courants qui sont les plus difficiles a lire ou a interpreter, parce qu'ils sont ecrits en abrege ou perdus dans des formules au sens obscur. Les exemples sont la pour montrer les associations de mots et d'idees les plus frequentes dans les actes de procedure ou de la pratique notariale. Regler une querelle de voisinage, obtenir un degrevement d'impots, passer un contrat de travail, organiser une succession: ces soucis de la vie quotidienne etaient egalement ceux de nos ancetres, et nous sommes nombreux a vouloir en retrouver le temoignage dans des liasses et des registres parfois tres anciens. Les archives publiques sont ouvertes a tous, et ce dictionnaire vous aidera a remonter le temps, peut-etre bien au-dela de ce que vous esperiez.
Call Number: Z106.5.F8 B83 2011ISBN: 9782251444062Publication Date: 2013-03-08- Les écritures ordinaires : sociologie d'un temps de révolution documentaire : entre royaume de France et empire, 1250-1350 by Les « écritures ordinaires » proposent une synthèse originale avec des accents d'essai, à la suite du célèbre From Memory to Written Record de Michael Clanchy, rédigée autour des interactions entre écrit et société médiévale, dans le nord de la France et l'espace des anciens Pays Bas méridionaux, durant le long treizième siècle. Cet ouvrage se propose de dégager les grandes lignes d’un moment clé de la grande révolution documentaire qui transforme le Moyen Âge. Appuyé avec force sur des analyses codicologiques, diplomatiques et paléographiques, il veut associer les développements de l’écrit aux transformations d’une société médiévale. Adaptation, accumulation, compilation et abréviation de données, uniformisation et bricolage documentaire, naissance du souci de conservation et de la vitesse… sont autant de concepts mis en œuvre au fil de ces pages. In fine, cette constatation : de plus en plus investis de valeur juridique, les documents deviennent des instruments porteurs d’autorité mais aussi des écrits ordinaires, dégagés des formalismes, des cadres structurels diplomatiques, des normes et des règles, masse grouillante et indistincte produite par un brouillard d’hommes et de femmes.Call Number: CD61 .B47 2015ISBN: 9782859449209Publication Date: 2015
Italian Manuscripts & Paleography
- Esempi di scritture cancelleresche, curiali e minuscole. byCall Number: Z115.I8 M38Publication Date: 1972
- Lexicon abbreviaturarum : dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane usate nelle carte e codici specialmente del Medio-Evo, riprodotte con oltre 14000 segni incisi, con l'aggiunta di uno studio sulla brachigrafia medioevale, un prontuario di sigle epig by Call Number: Z111 .C24 1990ISBN: 8820311003Publication Date: 1990
Spanish Manuscripts & Paleography
- A manual of manuscript transcription for the dictionary of the Old Spanish language byCall Number: Z115.S7 M33 1986Publication Date: 1986
- Arte de leer escrituras antiguas : paleografía de lectura byCall Number: Z115.S7 R695 1997Publication Date: 1997
Epigraphy Room at Davis Library
The Epigraphy Room is located in Davis Library on the sixth floor, room 6010. It houses an extensive collection of epigraphical materials: the major corpora of Greek and Latin inscriptions; a broad selection of supporting materials; the Henry Immerwahr collection of Greek squeezes; and several epigraphical journals. In addition, there are numerous folio volumes of paleographical materials and an uncatalogued collection of items pertaining to the Roman province of Dacia. The room is open to all UNC library patrons; the combination for the keypad at the entrance is available from the office of the Department of Classics.
The Epigraphy Room contains many useful reference works on Latin paleography and epigraphy not available in other library locations.