Paleography

[Chiqui74]

I've been pondering this issue for a long time.  Obviously, reading manuscripts is not easy if you can't read the handwriting even if you know the language, which means one needs to learn paleography, especially the paleography of the period/geographical era pertinent to one's research.  The thing is, I have yet to find a department that teaches a course on paleography for its graduate students.  How the heck are we supposed to learn paleography?  Trial and error sounds awfully time consuming, not to mention unreliable.

 

I was just looking at a digitized document and having some trouble with  quite a few of the words, and I thought I'd ask to see what your thoughts are on the matter.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Chiqui74

[mvlchicago]

A number of schools *should* have paleography classes. Off the top of my head I know Chicago offered a couple courses, I think Brown, Harvard, basically any school with a decent number of medievalists should be able to offer one if you need it. There are also fellowships offered at a number of institutions on paleography, depending on where you're located. I'd get in touch with your faculty and ask them if they know of any things upcoming and to keep you in the loop if you're serious about it. One of the listhosts I'm on had a recent advertisement for something held in York with full stipend to learn how to deal with English manuscripts from the 13th century as an example.

[Chiqui74]

The thing is that Medieval Latin paleography, for example, won't help me much with Early American manuscripts.  I'm definitely serious about learning, not just for my research but because I have an interest in paleography and manuscript studies.  I'm also very interested in codicology and bibliology.  How many PhDs can one have????

[dr. t]

The thing is that Medieval Latin paleography, for example, won't help me much with Early American manuscripts.  I'm definitely serious about learning, not just for my research but because I have an interest in paleography and manuscript studies.  I'm also very interested in codicology and bibliology.  How many PhDs can one have????

 

Actually, the ductus does not change radically between the 15th and 17th centuries, but 17th c. cursive is one of the hardest things I've ever had to read. Still, "paleography" as a discipline usually does not extend beyond the bounds of the medieval period, at least in my (fairly extensive) experience. 

 

Your best bet is simply to read documents, preferably with someone looking over your shoulder.

[kotov]

A number of schools *should* have paleography classes. Off the top of my head I know Chicago offered a couple courses, I think Brown, Harvard, basically any school with a decent number of medievalists should be able to offer one if you need it. There are also fellowships offered at a number of institutions on paleography, depending on where you're located. I'd get in touch with your faculty and ask them if they know of any things upcoming and to keep you in the loop if you're serious about it. One of the listhosts I'm on had a recent advertisement for something held in York with full stipend to learn how to deal with English manuscripts from the 13th century as an example.

 

One of my friends took it in Scotland or something. I don't know who might offer it in the U.S. though. Can't imagine many smaller schools/state schools would.

 

I mostly just need a "decipher Lieutenant Derp-escu's crappy handwriting on this TPS report" class, because 1940s military dudes have some of the ugliest cursive I've ever seen.

[remenis]

Most often, people don't need paleography unless they are working with medieval sources which is why you don't see many courses on this. You can learn by practising, comparing the handwriting with edited versions of the text to figure out the hand, and asking your advisors.

 

But this might also help you: http://www.newberry.org/mellon-summer-institutes-vernacular-paleography

[dr. t]

Well, there are two types of paleography, really: technical paleography, which involves analyzing hands and script features to determine place and time of production, etc., and practical paleography which simply means reading the text. I assume that we're talking about the latter, here, and if that's the case, I wouldn't really recommend a formal course.

 

If you want to practice reading, you should first check out Derolez's The Paleography of Gothic Manuscript Books, paying particular attention to Gothic cursive, French Bastarde, and Anglicana, the scripts that become 17/18c. cursive. The point is to learn to see how the writer formed his or her letters and thus reconstruct them, even if they're horribly distorted. 

 

If you want to PM me some things to look at, I can probably help with that.

 

Some links: 

http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/scrindex.htm

http://ciham.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/paleographie/index.php?l=en

http://www.hist.msu.ru/Departments/Medieval/Cappelli/

http://ciham-digital.huma-num.fr/enigma/

[Chiqui74]

Yeah, I'm more concerned with reading.  Thanks, all!

[twentysix]

I too am interested in this. I need to read 1500-1600s Spanish documents. The school I am likely going to attend offers 1000-1500 Latin paleography, but I do not read Latin... Is this (Colonial Spanish paleography) the type of thing that is offered as a summer workshop?

[remenis]

I too am interested in this. I need to read 1500-1600s Spanish documents. The school I am likely going to attend offers 1000-1500 Latin paleography, but I do not read Latin... Is this (Colonial Spanish paleography) the type of thing that is offered as a summer workshop?

 

Look up the Mellon Summer Institute in Spanish Paleography. I think it would cover what you are looking for but I am not certain. It's not offerred every year but usually every few years. It is being held this summer in southern California- but the deadline to apply was March 1.

Edited March 26, 2015 by remenis

[mvlchicago]

I didn't have a whole lot of issue with Spanish paleography from that time period, and I didn't have much experience when I first started archiving. I think the Latin paleography class might actually have some useful feedback since a lot of the shorthand from Latin gets into 13th-14th century Castilian, which eventually bleeds into the 16th century, but I think just practice will help you on this front!

[scirefaciat]

This is the first document I worked on when I started my paleography instruction: http://aalt.law.uh.edu/E3/KB27no360/aKB27no360fronts/IMG_4605.htm

 

My experience is a little different, because I work on medieval legal documents. My advisor and I went through this writ line by line; I would tell him what I thought it was, and then he would make me figure out why I was wrong.  It was awful at the time, but by the end of it, I could pretty much sight read any of the writs in the plea rolls for this general time period (13th & 14th century).  

 

I honestly think that the best way to learn is to jump in, work with someone who knows what they are doing, and get accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the hands.  This will be easiest for someone who is a visual learner, and to be fair there is a certain amount of general similarity in the court hands that you don't see in the scripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  I have no idea where my documents may fall on a scale of difficulty, but one on one instruction seems to work well, if you have it available.

[twentysix]

This is the first document I worked on when I started my paleography instruction: http://aalt.law.uh.edu/E3/KB27no360/aKB27no360fronts/IMG_4605.htm

 

My experience is a little different, because I work on medieval legal documents. My advisor and I went through this writ line by line; I would tell him what I thought it was, and then he would make me figure out why I was wrong.  It was awful at the time, but by the end of it, I could pretty much sight read any of the writs in the plea rolls for this general time period (13th & 14th century).  

 

I honestly think that the best way to learn is to jump in, work with someone who knows what they are doing, and get accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the hands.  This will be easiest for someone who is a visual learner, and to be fair there is a certain amount of general similarity in the court hands that you don't see in the scripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  I have no idea where my documents may fall on a scale of difficulty, but one on one instruction seems to work well, if you have it available.

 

>.>

That image looks like complete nonsense to me.

Edited March 27, 2015 by twentysix

[dr. t]

Try Thomas Aquinas' autograph. Yes, that's the traditional Latin alphabet.

 

[alpheratz]

OP, the Rare Book School at UVA offers a variety of short summer courses in codicology, manuscripts studies, and paleography.  The paleography course only goes up until the 16th century, but it would at least give you the fundamentals you need to get through later scripts.

There are other summer courses in paleography (for instance, the PIMS Diploma Programme in Manuscript Studies), but those tend to swing heavily medieval.  RBS focuses a lot more on later/printed manuscripts, so you might find something more relevant to your interests there.

@Telkanuru, wtf even *is* that script?  The only way I can think to describe it is "a thirteenth-century cursive abomination."  I'm too lazy to look up what it's actually called at the moment.

[dr. t]

I call it "good thing Aquinas dictated to 4 scribes simultaneously because otherwise we'd have no idea what he said".

[Heimat Historian]

I hadn't considered the need for paleography for Modern Germany until I started looking at some of the old German handwriting which is radically different from the stuff after the 1950s.