Resources

Whether your interest is medieval manuscripts, languages, or animal lore, there’s something here for you.

Old English

  • Old English Wordhord (mine) – Old English Word of the Day blog.
  • Bosworth-Toller Dictionary – Look up Old English words.
  • Toronto Dictionary of Old English – Much more thorough (think Oxford English Dictionary for Old English), only includes words beginning with A-I so far. Get 20 free logins per year, or if you’re affiliated with a university, check to see if the library has a subscription. You can see the Word of the Week without paying for a subscription, and you can sign up to get this in email form.
  • A Thesaurus of Old English – Search for Old English words by subject rather than alphabetically.
  • Old English Translator – Translate an Old English word to modern English or vice versa.
  • Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog – Great post on Old English alphabet and pronunciation.
  • Old English Poetry – Database of poetry written in Old English, glossed but not translated.
  • The Riddle Ages – Provides texts, translations, and commentary of the Old English riddles in the Exeter Book.
  • Beowulf Translations – Compare over 100 different translations of Beowulf, from the beginning of the 19th century to the present.
  • Wikipǣdia – Wikipedia in Old English. Why not.

Middle English

Manuscripts

  • British Library Digitised Manuscripts – Search the British Library’s collection of digitised manuscripts.
  • The Walters Art Museum – Manuscripts digitised by The Walters Art Museum, as well as photos of metalwork, sculpture, paintings, and stained glass.
  • Digital Bodleian – Digitised medieval and renaissance manuscripts at the Bodleian Library.
  • J. Paul Getty Museum – A beautiful collection of medieval manuscripts online.
  • Wren Digital Library – Digitised collections from the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.
  • Open Marginalis – A selection of digitized medieval manuscripts working to guide new users to open collections for casual and scholarly use.

Blogs

  • The Medieval Bestiary – An amazing database of medieval animals.
  • Medieval Comics: how to be human in the Middle Ages (mine) – A blog about the medieval, comics, and medieval comics, exploring what it means to be human in the Middle Ages.
  • British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog – Fun, user-friendly blog posts about medieval stuff, illustrated with beautiful images from the British Library’s collection.
  • Medievalists.net – Articles and links to papers on everything medieval.
  • Discarding Images – Probably my favourite medieval Tumblr, amusing medieval images that are very well cited.
  • Sexy Codicology – Making codicology (the study of books as physical objects, especially manuscripts) sexy one post at a time.
  • Erik Kwakkel – A medieval book historian’s Tumblr of medieval book eye candy.
  • A Clerk of Oxford – A blog about the literature and history of medieval England, as well as about saints, churches, folklore, Vikings, etc.

2 comments on “ResourcesAdd yours →

  1. Do you know of a publish bestiary that would be appropriate for children and adults alike? What I have found online looks like children’s books. I like how this website uses allows the artists imagination to recreate beasts.

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