Handwriting and language
'I remember once being unable to read a word in a will of about 1590.
I took the document to the Secretary, who said: 'Try Mr. So-and-So, who is sitting over there'.
I took it across to a rather formidable-looking old gentleman sitting at the table.
He snatched the will from me, glanced for a second at the word I could not read, [and] snapped 'Flimgot',
as if any fool could decipher that.'
Anthony Powell, in the Genealogists' Magazine, September 1991.
Much of this guide has been concerned with records that are available in print, for
which legibility should obviously not be a problem. But most genealogists at some time
will want to look at the records themselves, whether in the original or on microfilm.
Also, large numbers of images of medieval documents are now available online, notable at the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website.
For some documents, vocabulary may also present difficulties, and these get worse
as the documents get older - for most Britons and Americans, English itself becomes
a foreign language at some point in the 15th century. In itself, this is not too serious
a problem, because comparatively few records this old are likely to be written in English
- most are in Latin, and a few in French. Further problems arise because - particularly
in legal documents - the Latin is often highly abbreviated. This is the reason that
early printed editions of medieval records used a special record type to
reproduce the notation of the documents. So at worst, the reader has to contend
with unfamiliar handwriting, a foreign language and drastic abbreviations.
This can be very discouraging, and is probably enough to discourage many people from even trying.
But there are several things to remember:
- Medieval people - even the clerics - weren't any cleverer than
their modern-day counterparts. The people who had to read the documents
then differ from those who want to read them now only, essentially,
in having had more practice.
- Handwriting in official medieval records is usually fairly carefully done.
This means that - with a little practice - a medieval document in
good condition can be easier to decipher than many later documents.
(Personally, I think the hardest handwriting the genealogist has to deal
with is the often sloppy scrawl of the Victorian census return or parish register.)
- Most of the medieval documents used by genealogists follow more or
less rigid formulae - and of course, this is the reason why it was often
possible to abbreviate them so drastically. With the help of transcripts
of a few examples of the type of document in question, the reader can narrow
down the possibilities for an illegible word or phrase - often there will
be only one realistic candidate. Another useful trick is to use a good
search engine to look for transcripts
of similar documents on the Internet - with luck, it's possible to find
an example of exactly the same phrase.
The lists below include a variety of useful reference material - some online and
some printed - for dealing with the problems of handwriting and language.
Links and bibliography for handwriting and language
The outstanding online resource for late-medieval English vocabulary is:
- Middle English Dictionary (University of Michigan )
Electronic version of a comprehensive 15,000-page dictionary of English for the period 1100-1500.
Another useful online resource is the internet mailing list
OLD-ENGLISH-L (Judith Werner),
'for people trying to decipher or interpret old written sources' in English.
The emphasis is on queries about English vocabulary in the early modern period (or later).
Another excellent resource for early modern English vocabulary is Ian Lancashire's
Lexicons of Early Modern English
(University of Toronto), based on 160 dictionaries and similar works from 1480-1702.
This recently published work deals with some 3,400 medieval terms and phrases:
- Christopher Cor�don and Ann Williams,
A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases
(2004)
There are also some good online glossaries of medieval terms.
(Encyclopedias, dictionaries and some other glossaries are listed on the
links page.)
-
NetSERF's Hypertext Medieval Glossary [not available, 16 June 2020; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from July 2019]
Covers more than 1400 terms,
with hyperlinked cross-references and bibliography
-
Guide to Medieval Terms
(J.S. Arkenberg, California State University)
[not available, 24 December 2016; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from January 2015]
A glossary of towards 1000 medieval terms, with an international flavour
- as well as Western terms, it includes many from the Islamic world
-
Glossary of Obscure Terms (The Records of Earls Colne, Cambridge University)
Glossary of more than 300 archaic terms
- Glossary
of Medieval Terms (Michael Adams/Brendan McManus) [formerly at
http://cal.bemidji.msus.edu/History/mcmanus/ma_gloss.html; unavailable 4 November 2007;
see the Internet Archive's
copy
of this page, from October 2004]
A glossary of around 300 international medieval terms
-
Medieval English Towns - Glossary (Stephen Alsford)
Detailed discussion of about 50 medieval terms
-
Scotland - a glossary of archaic terms ... (Peter Garwood)
Not English and not exclusively medieval, but a very extensive collection
of archaic Scottish terms useful for genealogical research
- The Terminology section of the
Hull Domesday Project website contains detailed information on many medieval terms, including
weights and measures, arranged by subject area.
- Dictionary
of Genealogy & Archaic Terms (Randy Jones, The Genealogy And Family History Home Page)
An extensive dictionary of genealogically relevant words,
based originally on a list by Dick Eastman, including many useful for medieval research
An online introduction to Anglo-Saxon is available:
There is also an online version of
An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898) by Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller:
- Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague)
Searchable electronic text and page images; includes the supplement of 1921. (NB Unfortunately the interface does not appear to work in some older browsers.)
[Return to list of contents]
As well as discussing archaic vocabulary, Judith Werner's
OLD-ENGLISH-L
internet mailing list maintains a web page where images of documents
can be displayed, if help is needed with difficult words or phrases.
A number of online resources are available:
- Charles Johnson and Hilary Jenkinson, English Court Hand A.D. 1066 to 1500. Part 1: Text. (1915) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
Comprehensive guide, including illustrations of the historical development of letter forms, and model transcriptions.
- Andrew Wright; corrected and enlarged by Charles Trice Martin, Court-Hand Restored (1879) (Google Books [Hints and tips])
Contains plates showing the forms of letters, with some examples of transcribed documents.
[Other copies at: Internet Archive - Text Archive: 1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4 .]
- Early Handwriting 1500-1700 - an online course
(Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Service)
Includes a series of graded lessons, with further images and transcripts of documents,
sample alphabets, notes on abbreviations, dating and transcription conventions,
and a bibliography
-
Early Modern Palaeography
(David Postles, Leicester University) [not available, 11 December 2018; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from September 2015]
Another online course, including bibliography,
a sixteenth century alphabet, sample texts and examples of contractions (abbreviations)
- Palaeography:
reading old handwriting, 1500 - 1800: A practical online tutorial (National Archives/University College London)
Includes some useful reference material, including information on abbreviations, dates, money, weights and measures;
with links to examples of documents for practice, and a bibliography
There are also several useful published works:
- W.S.B. Buck, Examples of handwriting, 1550-1650
(London, 1973)
- H.E.P. Grieve, Examples of English Handwriting 1150-1750
(Chelmsford, 1954)
- L. Munby, Reading Tudor and Stuart handwriting
(Chichester, 1988)
- J.F. Preston and L. Yeandle,
English handwriting 1400-1650: an introductory manual
(Asheville [North Carolina], 1999)
[Return to list of contents]
Many online Latin dictionaries are available.
Apparently most of the online dictionaries have something of a classical bias,
but the following include useful medieval Latin content:
Some professional translation services are also available:
Of course, there are many Latin dictionaries in print.
The following apply specifically to the medieval period:
- Dictionary of medieval Latin from British sources
(17 fascicules; London, 1975-2013)
- R.E. Latham, Revised medieval Latin word-list from British and Irish sources
(first published London, 1965; most recent edition 1989)
- J.F. Niermeyer, Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus ... a medieval Latin French/English dictionary
(2 vols; Leiden, 1976)
There are also some briefer guides and dictionaries,
prepared for family and local historians:
- E.A. Gooder, Latin for local history: an introduction
(first published London, 1961; most recent edn 1978)
- E. McLaughlin, Simple Latin for family historians
(c.1988)
- J. Morris, A Latin glossary for family and local historians
(Birmingham, 1989)
- D. Stuart, Latin for local and family historians : a beginner's guide
(Chichester, 1995)
[Return to list of contents]
A number of online resources are available:
- Andrew Wright; corrected and enlarged by Charles Trice Martin, Court-Hand Restored (1879) (Google Books [Hints and tips])
Contains plates showing the forms of letters, with some examples of transcribed documents.
[Other copies at: Internet Archive - Text Archive: 1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4 .]
-
Medieval Paleography: An Introductory Course
(David Postles, Leicester University) [not available, 11 December 2018; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from December 2015]
An excellent online course, including parallel Latin and English texts,
hypertext versions with commentaries on individual clauses,
images of original charters, bibliography and reference material
on language and chronology
-
Medieval Writing - History, Heritage and Data Source
(Drs John and Dianne Tillotson) [not available, 16 June 2020; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from January 2020]
These pages contain a set of interactive exercises (mainly Latin, but with some English documents),
together with background material, a glossary, a bibliography and some useful links
There are also some useful collections of images of medieval documents online:
- Yorkshire in the Middle Ages (The Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society)
Includes a small collection of images of documents, from the 13th-15th centuries, in the archives of the Society.
A useful published work is:
- D. Stuart,
Manorial records: an introduction
to their transcription and translation
(Chichester, 1992)
[Return to list of contents]
French vocabulary
This comprehensive resource is available online:
- The Anglo-Norman Dictionary (The Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub)
Dictionary of the French language as used in medieval England. Letters G-Z are from the first edition of the dictionary (1977-1992); A-E are from the second edition (2000-2006); F is an unpublished revision (and similar revisions will be added for G and H).
[Return to list of contents]