 |
 |
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture From: Ken Grant <[log in to unmask]> >Our department has a graduate student interested in exploring the building of Cluniac monasteries along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. She will be making the journey along the route in June and July of 2010, and was wondering if there were archives in the region that might aid her research. totally off the top of my head: seems to me, Ken, that, while any- and everything you can do to encourage your student to delve into the original source material available in the various local archives départmentales (i am assuming the interest is in France rather than Spain, about which i know nothing at all) a.s.a.p. is all to the good, she may be in grave danger of horse-putting before carts (and, perhaps, of wheel-reinventing, as well), if she wants to skinny-dip into "archives" without, on the one hand, a thorough preparation in the published secondary material and, on the other, focusing her interest on a single site which is particularly attractive (for whatever reason) to her. that being said, there is a *massive* amount of preparatory spadework which she can do --on this side of the waters-- which is both easier to do here (than in France) and, once done, will result in a *much* more productive use of her (all-too-limited limited) time "in country." the methodological sequence to be followed *before* going On the Road should be something like: 1) picking the primary site of interest; b) familiarization with the relevant published secondary material (paying particular attention to the surviving original source material cited therein); III) plowing through whatever primary source material has been published --the cartularies of many/most of the better known sites (e.g., Moissac, Conques, Cluny itself) have been, mostly, published and most are available on the internet, via http:// books.google or http://gallica.bnf.fr iv) reading through, say, the relevant parts of the "Inventaire sommaire" of the relevant _fonds_ in the archives which houses the documents concerning her site (many of these are now available on the web, either from the a.d.'s own website or on books.google or gallica.bnf.fr ) helas, what she will surely discover is that all of the "major" sites have been "taken" --their soil tilled and exploited by scholars (some good, some very good, some bad, some very bad) for over 150 years. but, some diligent digging might turn up a (comparatively) obscure site which might be both worth looking further into and for which there may be important documents which have not been published or, perhaps, could use a "fresh look." needless to say, working with archival material assumes a familiarity with the relevant language(s) (Latin and French) and some palaeographic competence (not just with the scripts of the easy-to-read 12th c. documents, but with the nearly-illegible late medieval and early modern ones, as well). and those basic skills could, and should, be mastered as much as possible before setting out on any pilgrimages. just some idle thoughts. c ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html