Early Modern Paleography - Folger Shakespeare Library

development of handwriting by Stanley Morison. Illustrated with portraits of the masters and
specimens of their hands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931. [includes many
facsimile plates]
Osley, A.S., ed. Scribes and Sources: Handbook of the Chancery Hand in the Sixteenth Century.
Boston: David. R. Godine, 1980. [translations from Latin, Italian, and Spanish writing manuals,
with some facsimile plates]
Watermark Identification (for dating undated manuscripts)
Briquet, C. M. Les Filigranes, 4 vols. Amsterdam: The Paper Publications Society, 1968.
Gravell, Thomas. Thomas Gravell Watermarks Database [contains many watermarks from
Folger manuscript collection] (www.gravell.org)
Heawood, Edward. Monumenta chartae papyracae, I: Watermarks. Amsterdam: The Paper
Publications Society, 1950.
Useful reference sources (for place-names, family names, dating, unfamiliar words,
identification of poems)
A2A – Access to Archives: the English strand of the UK archives network (www.a2a.org.uk/)
[database includes items from 390 record offices and other repositories, searchable by keyword,
date, repository, and region; constantly updated]
Archival Resources (on-line subscription database, available at the Folger through Hamnet)
[provides access to over 18,000 finding aids and 510,000 collection records for manuscripts and
archives of all periods; mostly American repositories; constantly updated]
Bartholomew, John. The Survey Gazeteer of the British Isles. Edinburgh: John Bartholomew &
Son, Ltd., 1932.
British Library Manuscripts Catalogue (molcat.bl.uk/msscat/INDEX.asp) [a work-in-progress,
created by scanning published catalogues; allows searching by keyword and index terms]
Calendars of State Papers (Domestic Series). London, 1856-2000. [summaries of the papers of
the secretaries of state relating to every facet of early modern government; indexes are
indispensable for names; see also calendars for Ireland, Scotland, Venetian, Milan, Rome, etc.]
Cheney, C.R., ed., revised by Michael Jones. A Handbook of Dates: for Students of British
History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Crum, Margaret. First-lineIindex of English Poetry, 1500-1800, in Manuscripts of the Bodleian
Library. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
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