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Some information about my research

 

When I started on this project - quite a few years ago - I was unsure how I could finish it, given the sheer amount of material which I would need to seek out at the library, around the constraints of my day job.  But the medieval world has come miraculously closer in the last few years thanks to the great gods of the internet.  A selection of my favourite research portals appear below:

  • http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/ is the most wonderful treasure trove both of published material and of public records.  My favourite page there takes you to almost every set of Chancery rolls you could ever wish to find

  • http://aalt.law.uh.edu/ is awesome, in a different way.  There you can find not just links to various published versions of primary materials, but also, where these have not been published, actual photos of the original documents.  Amogst these are copies of the accounts for various locations such as Langley, Westminster and the Tower. Almost inexpressibly exciting!  They also have online Latin tutorials

  • http://fmg.ac/ The foundation for Medieval Genealogy has the most amazing hyperlinked genealogy for royal and noble houses of the medieval era, backed up by some vibrant debate on the message boards. I have spent many, many happy hours pursuing people through this site ...

  • Of the virtual libraries,

    • I owe an immense debt to the lovely people responsible for The Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/texts where such treasures as the Annales Monastici and a wealth of other materials can be found.  I can safely say that without this resource I would never have been able to finish the book, as they enabled me to slot in the odd 15 minutes of research from my desk, as those spare 15 minuteses arrived.

    • Also of huge value was the Bibliotheque Nationale de France's online offering: http://gallica.bnf.fr/?&lang=EN which filled in a surprising number of gaps

  • ​And Google Books should not be forgotten - a number of particularly fruitful sources were turned up by the simple expedient of searching this by reference to a range of words which interested me - which then led to other references and sources.  A surprising numnber of books can be viwed in considerable part via this resource, which at least enables you to decide whether to request it at the British Library ...

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