Paleography Course
A correspondence course for beginners or near
beginners (members only) who wish to read fifteenth century handwriting.
The emphasis will be on private and business hands - the kinds of script
to be found in government and family records - rather than the formal
book hands employed in copying literary texts. The examples used will
be predominantly in English, with any Latin phrases fully explained,
so that students with no Latin should not be deterred from applying.
The full course will consist of eight lessons which can be paid for
in two groups of four if desired. Each lesson will include sample texts
with a commentary drawing attention to such matters as abbreviations
and characteristic letter shapes and to any particular problems. Part
of the sample material will be fully transcribed; the student will be
expected to transcribe the remainder and return it for correction and
comment. As the course progresses the amount of commentary will decrease,
and the texts set for transcription increase in length and difficulty
so that the final lessons will be in effect an occasion for supervised
practice.
Any participants undertaking the course in order
to be able to read a particular document may, if they wish, replace
one or two of the final practice lessons with photocopies, (supplied
by them), of a text of their choice. Transcripts of such texts would
be corrected in the usual way by the tutor - allowing the student to
receive specialist help with their own work.
Students can work at their own speed and no
deadlines will be imposed. When one assignment has been completed the
corrected version will be returned with the next lesson.
The course can therefore take as much, or as
little, time as the student feels able to spare. The cost of the course
to UK members is £27.50 per module of four lessons (two modules available)
payable in advance. There is an overseas postage supplement of £5 for
Europe, £6 for USA and Canada and £8 for Australasia.