The Dark Ages and Beyond
For some reason, sites about the early medieval period seem to have a slightly different flavour to those about later eras. Perhaps because they deal with myth and legend as much as standard historical sources, they may have a more imaginative approach. There are also hundreds upon hundreds of very populist sites out there about King Arthur, Vikings and similar topics which are more recreational than instructive.
An index to Viking resources by a commercial company. This might be a useful place to start a search.
This is a very comprehensive site with all kinds of background material in Viking history and culture, based around a rather nice database of Viking resources which includes information about archaeological sites, museums and all manner of other visual resources. A message currently indicates that it is "closed for the time being", whatever that might mean. Let's hope it comes back.
This was a participatory project which seemeds to involve schools being able to be actively involved in developing the site. It has an interestingly constructed linked network of information, but there are lots of links with only a little information in each. As it was last updated in 2001, one must conclude that it represents a web experiment completed, rather than a genuine historical source.
This is part of the York Archaeological Trust website and is really no more than a fancy advert for this amazing archaeological site and museum. Pity. There is so much that they could do with it.
This is an online only journal relating to the Dark Ages. It is completely free. The presentation is plain and simple but the articles are refereed and very useful.
A
Visual Tour through Late Antiquity
This aims to give a bit of a visual tour of Dark Age Gaul at the time of Gregory of Tours. It consists of a gallery of images, with minimal commentary, but there are some nice archaeological goodies displayed. The images are taken from a larger collection called ..
This is an even more spartan production, providing a gallery of early medieval images. The interface is very clunky and the commentary even more concise, but a nice retro touch is the Marxist style classification system.
This is a site constructed by a medieval re-enactment group with class and style. They assure us that they are not a weekend "hack and bash" society and that they are attempting to create, as authentically as possible, life and society in England in the period 950 to 1066. Using a simple interface with text and graphics, without plugins or cyberjiggerypokery, they have constructed a village and its inhabitants which you can explore and find out what goes on there. Very artful and cunning. An academic might want more precise reference material, but just wander through and enjoy. Read a book later.
Vortigern
Studies: British History 400-600
This is a comprehensive, and growing guide to source material for the study of Dark Age Britain. It tries to emphasise that there is more to this subject than Arthur, but they can't quite get away from him. It contains essays, source texts, images and links and serves as a nice counterpoint to much of the mythologised codswallop that is presented by recreational medievalists on this era.
A miscellany of links and opinion related to Celtic studies.
From Cambridge University, a front end to academic studies in the Anglo-Saxon area, including the complete corpus of Anglo-Saxon Charters, amongst other material.
Corpus
of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture
From the University of Durham, this is one of those heavy duty projects of substance rather than style. It provides a guide to a comprehensive series of paper publications produced by the British Academy, and a database of sculptures. This is comprehensive and wordy, and while there is a space in each entry for photographs, very few are up there as yet. This represents the development of research resources on the web rather than the quick grabs of most web sites. This is a five star concept for researchers, but may perhaps represent overload for the average student
