The University of New Mexico
Medieval Graduate Students in English

MSC03 2170
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131

Physical Location:
Humanities
2nd Floor

Resources

As students of the Middle Ages, MeGSE members see a lot of material on the web that could be useful to others who study the period.  Below you'll find a collection of useful software, as well as a large collection of external sites that a medievalist will find interesting, practical, and even fun.

This list is constantly evolving and is maintained by one of the MeGSE members on an as-needed basis.  If you have any suggestions for additions, or if there seems to be a dead link, please email Justin Larsen; he will take care of it.  Thank you!

Language

Old English

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - Digital Edition 
A modern, searchable version of the amazing dictionary originally edited by Joseph Bosworth in 1898 and then supplemented by Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller in 1921. It includes references to wordforms in manuscripts and links to the original dictionary, among other useful features.
Also available for free in the following formats: [EPUB] [PDF] [Amazon Kindle] [Google Books]

Clark Hall's Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary 
Another staple in the Old English classroom, Clark Hall's Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary is available for free for many different devices, including computers, e-readers, and smartphones. The main link above leads to a site that features scanned pages of the 1916 edition in .tiff and .png formats.
Also available for free in the following formats: [EPUB] [PDF] [Amazon Kindle] [Google Books] 

Thesaurus of Old English 
Searchable by both Old and Modern English words, the TOE is even more useful in that it allows for searches by Old English phrase. The interface is clunky and hard to navigate, but the information makes up for any lack of elegance. This site is hosted by the University of Glasgow.

Old English Aerobics - Main Page 
An extremely useful (albeit somewhat older) online collection of worksheets covering the many different facets of learning Old English, from the basics of grammar to lessons on meter and poetic style. Users will also want to know that there is a glossary and an out-of-date-but-still-functional "Workout Room," as well. The site is hosted by the University of Virginia and that the exercises are keyed to Peter S. Baker's Introduction to Old English.

Middle English

Middle English Compendium
Including a hyperlinked biblography, a list of digitized manuscripts, and a respectable collection of online texts, the MEC is one of the best online resources available to the student of Middle English.  The site is hosted by the University of Michigan.

Middle English Dictionary Online
Part of the Middle English Compendium, but worthy of mention on its own, the Dictionary is hosted by the University of Michigan and offers a number of search methods.  Although somewhat difficult to navigate, the website is powerful and, with a bit of learning, quite useful.

TEAMS Middle English Texts Series
With hundreds of texts edited with the student in mind, TEAMS METS offers copyrighted editions for free for private use via their website, but they also publish a number of them in print, as well.  The site is a Robbins Library digital project hosted by the University of Rochester.

Gothic

Heyne's Gothic Dictionary 
A collection of scanned images (.tiff and .png) of pages from the 1896 text of Ulfilas, oder die uns erhaltenen Denkmäler der gotischen Sprache. The first large section of pages includes Gothic translations of the Gospels and other texts. The glossary/dictionary begins on page 233 and translations offered are, as would one would expect given the title, in German. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.

Grammar of the Gothic Language
This site makes available Joseph Wright's 1910 work Grammar of the Gothic Language and the Gospel of St. Mark, Selections from the Other Gospels, and the Second Epistle to Timothy, with Notes and Glossary. The approach is similar to Heyne's Dictionary above, but this resource also features a searchable XML/HTML glossary. This site is a part of the Germanic Lexicon Project and is hosted by the Charles University of Prague.

Latin & Greek

Allen & Greenough's New Latin Grammar
In a sea of books on Latin, Allen & Greenough's New Latin Grammar is perhaps superceded by only Wheelock in fame and popularity. The original text, published in 1888, was revised and reprinted in 1903 and 1916, and it's still in use today in many Latin classrooms, including those at the University of New Mexico.
Also available for free in the following formats: [EPUB] [PDF] [Google Books] 

The Perseus Project 
More of a storehouse for classical literature than a language-learning tool, the Perseus Project nonetheless has a tremendously powerful Latin and Greek parsing engine that is especially effective because it is closely tied to the context in which the word appears in manuscript texts. Perseus also includes a number of other literatures (including Arabic and Germanic texts and an archive of the Richmond Times Dispatch, of all things), so you might find some help with other languages here, too. The site is hosted by Tufts University.

Textkit Greek and Latin Learning Tools 
The first full sentence on the site says it all: "Textkit was created to help you learn Ancient Greek and Latin!" In pursuit of this goal, the site administrators have collected a large number of textbooks in digital format free for download (this includes a link to another version of the Allan & Greenough above), all available in the public domain. It is fair to say that they have quite a bit more Greek than Latin.

William Whitaker's Words 
One of the best places on the web for parsing that difficult word or working out that stubborn Latin translation, Words is actually the beneficiary of a tremendously solid program developed by William Whitaker for a number of platforms, all the way back to DOS. The web interface is hosted by the University of Notre Dame. The stand alone software for multiple platforms is available here.

Old Norse

English-Old Norse Dictionary
Simple and elegant in its execution, this .pdf file is a large-text Old Norse dictionary with full searching capabilities inside a viewer application (use the find command). Although the number of entries is a bit limited, as is the information given, the document does serve as an effective translation aid. The file is hosted at York University in Toronto, Ontario.

Old Norse Online @ UT Austin
Sporting several lessons in the history, culture, and literature that surround the language of Old Norse, the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin provides a series of meaningful translation exercises from texts like Njal's Saga, Grettis Saga, and the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

History and Art History

Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture 
An online catalog of carvings and other sculpture in stone dating from the 7th-11th centuries.

Software

Dealing with Special Characters

Languages like Old English and Old Norse can be challenging to learn, but typing the characters they use shouldn't be. There are dozens of different ways to deal with this difficult problem, from swapping between English and Icelandic software keyboards to installing specialized character map and keybinding software. Here are a list of a few options available to students and scholars:

Junicode Font
No one likes opening a document and finding rows of boxes where characters should be, but the truth is that some medieval characters can be difficult to find in standard fonts. The Junicode font family addresses that concern by including uncommon characters (like "þ" with a stroke through the ascender, a common scribal abbreviation for "þæt" in Old English). Open Font License.