MEMSLib

Curated by Segolene Gence.

With contributions from Dr Edward Mills (Exeter) and Dr Heather Pagan (Editor of Anglo-Norman Dictionary, Aberystwyth University)

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Welcome to our page dedicated to Medieval French and Anglo-Norman! On this page you will find three main sections, the first two being dedicated to the Medieval French language with a list of dictionaries for the many dialects that made up Medieval French. The final section on this page focuses on resources on core Medieval French texts which offer an interesting linguistic take on their materials, may it be by the tools they provide but also by the linguistic wide-scope and potential of their project.

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Medieval French Dictionaries

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Dictionnaire du moyen français (1330-1550) - Available online.

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Godefroy, Frédéric. Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (Paris, 1881-1902. 10 vols) - the first nine volumes are available in .pdf format on the Gallica website. You can also access the Dictionary through this website, which more user friendly.

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Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien Français (DEAF) – Made by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, the DEAF lays the scientific foundations, both philological and linguistic, of Old French. It covers the period from 842 until the middle of the 14th century. The articles are listed in alphabetical order and contain the words grouped by etymological families. More information can be found here.

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La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Jean-Baptiste de, Dictionnaire historique de l’ancien langue françois ou Glossaire de la langue françoise depuis son origine jusqu’au siècle de Louis XIV (Paris, 1875-82. 10 vols) - Available in .pdf format on the Gallica website.

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Tobler, Adolf and Erhard Lommatzch. Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch (Vols. 1-10, Berlin, 1925-76. Vol. 11, col. 1-768, u-vonjement Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1989-95. Vol. 11, col. 769-938, vonjement-zure, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002) - Available through the University of Stuttgart.

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Wartburg, Walther von et al, Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch: eine Darstellung des galloromanischen Sprachschatzes (FEW) 25 vols (Bonn: Klopp et al., 1928-) – Available online.

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Anglo-Norman

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Anglo-Norman Dictionary (editors De Wilde, Geert and Heather Pagan) - The AND is an incredible resource if you are studying Anglo-Norman. In addition to their online dictionary, you can access articles on Anglo-Norman and texts on their site. An invaluable tool.

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Medieval French Texts and Bibliographical Tools

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​Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France is an AHRC funded project exploring how certain key literary texts and traditions travelled along two principal axes: a northern route that stretches from England across the Low Countries to Burgundy and the Rhineland; a southern route across the Alps to Northern Italy and out into the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, to the Middle East. MFLCOF offers a manuscript directory of six key textual traditions, alongside an interactive map and complementary introductions and materials, in order to assist research on cultural and linguistic identity, on medieval textuality, and on the literary history of Europe.

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JONAS is a large and comprehensive database developed by the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes gathering information on French and Occitan medieval texts and their manuscript traditions. Daily updated, you will be able to trace in which manuscripts is a given text kept, as well as to find bibliographical information on manuscripts and texts. It will also detail in which French dialect(s) a text is written in. This database can work well in complementarity with the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts.

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Les Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (ALIRMA) is an online bibliographical database for scholarship of medieval texts and medieval authors. This resource is particularly useful to find scholarship on French-language medieval materials.

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The Online Froissart is an online edition of the Chronicles of Jean Froissart, scoping the period between 1326 to around 1400 in the first half of the Hundred Years' War. This resource is interesting for history and literature students alike. This online edition incorporates a search engine, a transcription viewing mode that is directly linked with the DMF (see resource above) for Medieval French words' definitions, as well as electronic facsimiles.

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Dictionnaire Electronique de Chrétien de Troyes is a dual resource focusing on Chretien de Troyes: a complete lexicon of the 12th-century author's works and a textual database. You may view either the complete texts (Érec, Cligès, Lancelot or the Chevalier à la Charrette, Yvain or the Chevalier au Lion, Perceval or the Conte du Graal) or search for the occurrence of specific terms in the transcriptions.

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