[Toraerie] Fwd: FW: online research handout

[pafk0003 at umn.edu]

Here's Gabriel's Online Research stuff. I can't remember if the list allows 
attachments or not. So, I'll also be pasting the content into the email.

IS,
Eyja


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I. List of some online resources: 

1. http://www.s-gabriel.org/ The infamous Academy of St. Gabriel 

The Academy is one of the best name and device research groups out there. 
One caveat is that although they primarily cater to SCA folk, they want to 
develop period names and devices, and not just SCA compatible.

There are three parts to the St. Gabriel webpage, both equally important. 

The first is the Archive. http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ and 
http://www.s-gabriel.org/heraldry/ This is a number of articles, the first 
batch containing mostly lists of names and name elements, with some 
guidance on construction of names from the lists The second batch contains 
lists of articles on construction of period armory as well as rolls of 
arms. They also have links to some other websites, which have good lists of 
names and armory.

The second part is the "Ask the Academy" part of the website:

http://www.s-gabriel.org/gabemail.html 

Here, anyone with a question about period names or period armory can ask 
it. They will provide you an answer in the form of a letter, and this 
letter can be used as documentation for the name in question at Laurel. An 
example of a St. Gabriel letter is attached.

The third part is their archive of letters that they have sent. Its a nice, 
searchable archive of everything St. Gabriel has prepared. You can browse 
through it or search through it. I find it useful in finding documentation 
for names that are not on their lists, or for finding names used in odd 
time periods. The Search Our Past Work tool is on the main page, with an 
advanced search tool on http://www.s-gabriel.org/advancedsearch.html and a 
simple but faster one on 
http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/archive.cgi
 

2. http://www.pase.ac.uk/ PASE 

"The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) is a database which aims 
to cover all of the recorded inhabitants of England from the late sixth to 
the end of the eleventh century. It is based on a systematic examination of 
the available written sources for the period, including chronicles, saints' 
Lives, charters, libri vitae, inscriptions, and coins."

For our purposes, what it does is to create an online resource for Anglo 
Saxon names. If you go to the Database Home, you can browse the period 
names in their modern form, which links to the period form of the name. You 
can search for period forms of the name, and you can also browse just the 
women's names. There is a lot more to the webpage than just that, however. 
You can also look at offices, occupations, status, and all sorts of other 
information.
 

3. http://www.sca.org/heraldry/library.html 

The Laurel library has some name and device articles as well. 
 

4. 
http://perso.numericable.fr/~briantimms/era/early%20rolls%20of%20arms.htm 
European rolls of arms of the Thirteenth Century.

This webpage contains a number of transcribed period rolls of arms and 
modern drawings of the arms. The blazons are all transcribed from either 
the primary source or a clear secondary source, and I believe the drawings 
are his own. Its a great resource for ideas.
 

5. http://books.google.com/books?id=oqBXmECZm0EC&printsec=titlepage#PPR3,M1 
Some Feudal Coats of Arms, by Joseph Foster

A lot of SCA heralds own "Some Feudal Coats of Arms" by Joseph Foster. 
Google books has it online. Honestly, Google books is a good resource to 
look for a number of heraldic texts online, however, caveat emptor, because 
some of these books have been superseded by better references. You can use 
Google books as a resource, but be careful. http://books.google.com
 

6. http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/links/herrefs.shtml 

This whole page is good, but the links to the rolls of arms, and the seals 
online are of great interest to the SCA herald.
 

7. http://oanda.sca.org/ 

The most useful part of this link is the SCA Ordinary. 
http://oanda.sca.org/ordinary/index.html Please see your class on conflict 
checking for how to use this resource.
 

II. Evaluating Online Sources: 

First, please note that most online sources do not care about reproducing 
medieval names exactly. We are. The sources need to be reliable in order 
for us to use the source as documentation for names.

There is no good checklist of things that will tell you if a source is good 
or bad. Some things to look for are the following:

Does the source tell you the specific dates with regards to the names it 
provides?

Does the source use meaningless "group" names such as "Celtic" or "Viking" 
or "Teutonic"? If so, its probably a source to avoid.

Does the source tell you the meaning of the name? Most names in our period 
did not have meanings associated with them, and the source is also probably 
unreliable.

Does the source give variants of the name, and better yet, does it give 
specific dates for the variants?

Does the source tell you if the name is a given name or surname?

Does the source provide the whole name? Does the source only give the name 
in the modern form?

Does the source provide a bibliography? 

The more of these that the source meets, the more likely it is to be 
reliable.
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