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University of OxfordHearing voices: getting more out of reading Old English texts

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3.4 Introduction to manuscripts

Fathom is a learning resource created by the British Library, and is adapted from a British Library publication, Michelle Brown’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts. Here you can learn about the context in which Anglo-Saxon scribes and illuminators produced the manuscripts (MSS), the tools and techniques used in their production and the skills for reading them.

Individual activity: Manuscripts

Read the ‘Introduction to Anglo-Saxon manuscripts’ at the Fathom website, then work your way through as many sessions of the seminar as you can, preferably all five, but at least numbers 2 and 4. When you have finished, post a message to the Hearing voices II forum about how you got on.

Georgetown University also provides an excellent resource for manuscript studies, with a section describing the preparation of manuscripts and the Old English Excel Database and the Old English Manuscripts Online Database, an invaluable search engine.

Peter S. Baker’s electronic Introduction to Old English has a section whose focus is practical; it provides guides to the reading of manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon period.

You might also like to look at the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

Optional activity: Old English script

Making a parchment manuscript might be a bit complicated, but you could try your hand at writing using Old English script. If you have a scanner, scan and post the result on the Hearing voices II forum.

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Old English scripts | First assignment