Brodie Waddell

Palaeography – the art of reading old handwriting – is a very specialized skill that will not be any use to 99.9 percent of the population. However, if you want to explore original sources produced before c.1750 for a dissertation, genealogy or local history, it may be essential.

The problem is that the script below was a perfectly normal way to write in the seventeenth century.

Luckily, for those of you who would like to learn the basics of reading early modern documents, there are a huge number of helpful resources available, including many that are free and online. They are widely scattered, so this post is an attempt to collect them in a single place.

My one piece of advice is this: the only way to learn palaeography is through practice. There are lots of helpful tricks and techniques mentioned in the resources below, but ultimately it takes at least a few hours of slow, painful transcription before it becomes remotely straightforward.

I would love to hear additional suggestions in the comments.

Online resources

Offline training

The Institute for Historical Research in London offers some in-person courses for reasonable fees.

The Institute for English Studies runs the London International Palaeography Summer School which includes both standard early modern palaeography and a variety of specialist courses.

The Warburg Institute in London offers a variety of research training and reading groups, sometimes including Latin palaeography.

If you are a university student, there is a decent chance there is palaeography training available on campus. Ask your tutor.

Many archives, record offices and local history groups offer palaeography training.

Books

Hilary Marshall, Palaeography for Family and Local Historians (2004) is an excellent handbook, packed with examples, which I found very helpful when starting out and which I still use on occasion

B. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (1990)

E. Boyle, Medieval Latin palaeography: a bibliographical introduction (1984)

P. Brown, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (1990)

P. Brown, The British Library Guide to Writing and Scripts (1998)

N. Buat and E. van den Neste, Manuel de paléographie française (2016)

G. Cencetti, Paleografia Latina (1978)

P. Cherubini and A. Pratesi, Paleografia latina. L’avventura grafica del mondo occidentale (2010)

E. Gooder, Latin for Local History, 2nd ed. (1978).

C. Johnson and H. Jenkinson, English Court Hand, AD 1066 to 1500 (1915).

T. Martin, The record interpreter: a collection of abbreviations, Latin words and names used in English historical manuscripts and records (2nd edn., London, 1910). Free online at archive.org

C. Newton, Medieval Local Records: a Reading Aid (1971)

J. Roberts, Guide to Scripts used in English Writings up to 1500 (2005)

A. Robinson, The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs, and Pictograms (1995)

J. Stiennon, Paléographie du Moyen Age (1973)