The Old English Manuscript Database THE OLD ENGLISH MANUSCRIPTS DATABASE
  1. Introduction and Contents of the Database
  2. A Brief Background in Old English Manuscripts
  3. Facsimiles of Old English Manuscripts
  4. Downloading the Database
  5. Important Notes for Interpreting the Database
  6. The Database Online Search Engine

INTRODUCTION


It is often very difficult to get information about the original manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon era; what few sources exist are often incomplete, out-of -date, and geared towards scholars who already know a significant amount of background information on the subject (i.e., they don't respond with vacant stares when told that the third folio of the eleventh quire of Cotton Otho contains colophonic glosses in an Alfredian miniscule reminiscent of notes written in the ubiquitous "tremulous" hand, or something like that). Also, no source that I have seen provides a comprehensive list of the existing facsimilies for these manuscripts.

In response to these facts, what follows is brief background in Old English Manuscripts; then, the Old English Manuscripts Excel Database, and the Old English Manuscripts Online Database, a search engine which contains all the following information for each of the approximately 200 Old English manuscripts containing a significant amount of Anglo-Saxon:
  1. The name of the manuscript, including the library which possesses it
  2. A brief description of the contents of the manuscript
  3. The approximate date of the manuscript
  4. Any existing complete facsimilies of the manuscript
  5. The author of the material of the manuscript (if known)
  6. The scribe or leader responsible for the creation of the manuscript (if known)
  7. The scriptorium in which the manuscript was written (if known)
  8. The letter designation of the hand which wrote the manuscript (as recorded in N. R. Ker's A Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon
  9. Any relevant additional notes about the manuscript


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If anything on these pages is incorrect or incomplete, I would love to hear about it. Send your comments to John Herrington at jherringtn@aol.com

© John Herrington 1998