Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying the weekend. I've just finished my undergraduate degree in modern history at an Australian university. But in one of my subjects, (which I didn't do well in) I really struggled with paleography.
It was an ancient history elective in 'ancient magic.' The course involved looking at papyri from Egypt and distinguishing it from other papyri. I struggled. I don't understand Coptic or Ancient Greek, and all the writing looked so alike.
During my degree, I developed a strong interest in the Middle Ages, particularly in Western Europe. Unfortunately, my university didn't offer many medieval courses (although I did take one in medievalism, which I did well in). I'd love to do a Masters degree in either medieval studies or history, hopefully in the United Kingdom (a university like York would be terrific).
But I'm concerned that due to my poor performance in the ancient history subject, that I'll flunk the compulsory course on palaeography. Which is why I'm asking for advice on how inexperienced history students can build up skills in medieval palaeography*.
I'm learning Latin, so maybe that'll help. If anyone has any book recommendations, or ideas about approaching medieval palaeography, please share. Because I feel lost, and yet my passion for medieval history remains strong. Also, if anyone has tips on studying medieval history at a postgraduate level in general, please share.
*Of course, there's a difference between ancient Egyptian palaeography and medieval Western Europe texts. I'm aiming to apply in the 2022/2023 academic year in the UK.
Thank you.
Learn the languages. It will help so, so, so much when you can't decide whether something is a letter or a pen squiggle.
Practice. Practice, practice, practice. It's all about looking, concentrating, and doing it over and over and over.
Cappelli. The deity, monarch, and laws of physics of medieval Latin paleography: a dictionary of common abbreviations. It's bonkers.
Also, if anyone has tips on studying medieval history at a postgraduate level in general, please share.
Most importantly: don't.
If you want to get a master's degree and that's it--why? Do you have the money for tuition, and to live during your degree? What are you going to do with the degree afterwards?
If you want to go on for a PhD--even worse. There are no academic jobs. There just aren't. Everyone wants to be the lightning-strike PhD who does get the job. Statistically, that won't be you. And nobody ever talks about the part where a tenure-track job is a tenure track job--not tenure. Women in particular are vulnerable to having their tenure applications rejected. It happened to the prof who was my mentor during my MA (she won her lawsuit against the university), and it happened to two medievalist profs at the school where I did my PhD.
Grad school is psychologically and academically hard. PhD programs especially. There's the joke, "50% of PhD students report being depressed and the other 50% are lying." Except it's not a joke.
If you want to do an MA (which you don't) or a PhD (which you really don't), be absolutely, 100% sure you go into it knowing what you will do with your degree afterwards that is not working in academia or a museum. Be absolutely, 100% sure you can afford the tuition plus supporting yourself during the degree. What seems romantic and doable in undergrad...isn't.
You're not thinking about even applying for two more years. You have so much time to come up with a different dream. I highly, highly, highly suggest you do.
My only advice for Paleography is "practice, practice, and practice".
You start with the images of the texts, and the transcriptions by their side. Like that, you start to get accustomed to the different writing styles of the different periods and places. You'll start to get the gist when you are familiar enough with the letters and the abbreviations. At a certain point you will start to not need the transcriptions and be able to read the texts without any problems.
Latin will come in very handy, as a vast amount of the medieval texts are in Latin. The exception to that are the realms of the Crown of Castile and Leon, where vernacular languages became the administrative languages in the 13th century, in the time of Alfonso X the Wise. You may find documents from Castile in Castilian, and documents from Galicia in Galician.
I'll give you one such example of a document in Galician here:
http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas20/catalogo/description/6996976?nm