Well its done. Degree number two, an MA, is finished and the dissertation handed in. On to degree number three... I will eventually get around to putting the dissertation, all about Cecco D'Ascoli, onto the web and also need to annotate my Copernicus essay so that can be linked up. I have a week before I start my PhD so perhaps that's a good time to get the web site updated. This blog is really just an aid memoir of useful websites and internet discussions but I might link it to Bede's Library so more people see it.

I just have to do an article on human dissection. A nut brain on the Sec Web has been trawling the internet and has found lots of references (including the infamous Andrew Dickson White) claiming that the Church held this back. My modern citations by modern scholars have not convinced him but has convinced me that I need to write a short article (like the one on the Flat Earth myth) to gather the quotes that blow this out of the water.

Ever wanted to read a Bede manuscript from the ninth century? I thought so. These palaeography exercises are among the cleverest things I've ever seen on the web and are ideal as an introduction to medieval maunscripts. I shall be working through them and expect my ability in this area to improve considerably as a result (from a very low starting point, mind you). The use of DHTML and Flash is really innovative and exactly the sort of useful rather than pointless idea that the web is crying out for. Congratulations to Dianne Tillotson for an outstanding website.

Astrology? Total horlix in my opinion but it was taken terribly seriously once upon a time. My research into early science frequently involves astrology and its detractors, so it is good to find that so many old texts are on the web. Not usually on academic sites but by the heirs to the astrological tradition. They still believe it works and have started using medieval and early modern texts to get back to basics.

Good sites on astrology including texts: Deborah Houlding's Skyscript and Robert Zoller's Medieval Astrology.

Another great web site! I'm not really in genealogy as the ancient Bedes live in well deserved obscurity but for one notable exception, but this site is a gold mine for doing medieval research in England. All the common sources of official data are covered, both the manuscripts and printed sources, not to mention links to other useful places including on-line palaeography courses. The site: Medieval Genealogy.

Some websites with useful information on finding and uses history sources:

How to find those elusive papal bulls

An index to the Rolls Series

Medieval philosophy from Paul Vincent Spade

A little known but excellent resource is Roger Pearce on Tertullian and other matters relating to the early fathers. This page, in particular includes English translations of lots of useful stuff which means I shall have to update my work on the Library of Alexandria to include it. Lots of other good resources on the site too about Eusebius, Tacitus and the other authorities that get quoted about early Christianity. Roger sets the record straight on a few common myths about Eusebius the forger etc.

I've been off history for a couple of weeks to get my breathe back and rest the brain. Returning to the grindstone now with my Masters dissertation to be handed in 30th September. A meeting with my supervisor about the proposed plan went pretty well but as they say about the best laid plans.... On footnotes, the best plan seems to be to put them in the status bar like this: [NOTE].

What is the best way to add footnotes to an essay on the web? Make a footnote a link like this (1) but you slip get back. Perhaps javascript can help. I am playing with using alerts which can be activated by clicking on a [NOTE] and made to go away again just as fast. I wonder if this works on Netscape as apparantly the javascript on the Great Library essay does not. I am using the alert method on an essay on Witch trials and then will try and put the big Alexandria essay on line as well.

My PhD subject looks like it will be on science around 1500 rather than the fourteenth century where my studies have been concentrated until now. This is quite exciting as it means I can also get involved in humanism and figures like St Thomas More and Erasmus. But it is a fact that renaissance history does seem to be a different kettle of fish to medieval studies although I think this is largely artificial. The idea that we can split history into these eras is pretty daft anyway especially since people seem to see renaissance man as somehow rational and like us, while medieval man was stuck in the dark ages. But the fact is that much of what we think of as 'medieval' like witch trials, the Inquisition, religious wars et al were far more in evidence in the renaissance and early modern period than the middle ages. The seventeenth century must rank as the most religious of them all (at least if you were a Christian). So, just as I am trying to use methods where ever I can find them, it is perhaps a good idea not to allow myself to be stuck as a 'medievalist' if that looks like excluding lots of other interesting stuff.