video lecture on Thomas Becket

This is the latest in my video lectures. Thomas Becket illustrated with chalk drawings!

Thomas Becket from Courtney Kneupper on Vimeo.

Digitised images of the Apocalypse

Here is a link to some beautiful images from Revelation.

click here to British library The British Library website has stunning examples of material medieval culture. They are really doing something right!

mapping gothic France - a great new digital project

The photographs alone are incredible, but there are also a series of maps and timelines tracking the development of Gothic architecture chronologically, geographically, spatially, and politically.
link to the project here
The images on the website are so large that I couldn't get one to load here, but, believe me, they are worth seeing. I quote from the description of this project: "Whereas pictures can be satisfactorily represented in two dimensions on a computer screen, space -- especially Gothic space -- demands a different approach, one which embraces not only the architectonic volume but also time and narrative. Mapping Gothic France builds upon a theoretical framework derived from the work of Henri Lefèbvre (The Production of Space) that seeks to establish linkages between the architectural space of individual buildings, geo-political space, and the social space resulting from the interaction (collaboration and conflict) between multiple agents -- builders and users." This seems a very interesting project linking material culture and architectural space with political developments. It is a bit unwieldy at the moment, but could make for a great classroom exercise, perhaps paired with some readings from Abbot Suger's diary.

sexy codicology

click here to visit Sexy Codicology
Loving the Getty's "Sexy Codicology" series. A great chance to see medieval images in beautiful format.

thinking of the world in spheres and symbols

Nicole Oresme's Livre du ciel et du monde, 1377

trying out tumblr

http://medievalista.tumblr.com Not much there yet, but more to come. I'm hoping tumblr will work better for the images I want to share.

digitized medieval manuscripts

Another useful source from digital medievalist. http://digitizedmedievalmanuscripts.org/ This maps digitized manuscripts, allowing one to find all the digitized sources in a region, with links to the libraries. So much more intuitive than trying to go lists of cities. It seems like a wonderful tool for graduate students beginning to look at medieval sources. Also, it can be constantly updated by groupsourcing.