The World Wide Web
Some Useful Sites for Medieval History Students
compiled and annotated by Dianne Tillotson
This project started in 1995 as a paper pamphlet with elephants on the cover, the function of which was to point out to students studying medieval history at the Australian National University, the small number of academically respectable medieval web sites available at that time. It has had to be regularly updated, and soon went online itself with a slightly lighthearted and tacky design of elephant skin wallpaper and big gold stars. The rapid advance in both quantity and quality of web material means that it has changed from a listing to more of a guide for finding and assessing medieval web material. Now that John Tillotson has retired from his teaching duties, we have moved it here in case anybody else out there wants to use it. It does get periodically updated, usually when somebody politely informs me that the URL of their website has changed and I then run through all the others.
Our original pamphlet had a picture of a medieval elephant on the cover. This is not that picture. Those who were lucky or persistent enough to get into the exhibition Treasures of the World's Great Libraries at the National Library of Australia in 2002 would have seen our original elephant in full colour. How thoughtful of them to send it over for us.
OUR VERY OWN MEDIEVAL WEBSITE
This site is now part of our very own medieval website, Medieval Writing, an introduction to medieval manuscripts and the written word, available for your delectation and delight. It examines the history of medieval handwriting and literacy and contains interactive exercises in medieval paleography.
