| Courses |
| Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents | ||||||||||||||||||
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| NOTE: This course requires compulsory materials to be ordered. Please click on the Supplies tab for details. A number of topics linked to palaeography are covered to ensure participants have sufficient background to tackle unfamiliar documents that span the past five hundred years. The primary goal involves transcribing the unfamiliar writing in old documents to the modern day hand. A secondary objective is to provide the student with a feeling of success and achievement when new skills are learned. As Britain had a major influence on the cosmopolitan development of North America, examples will be taken from British and Canadian resources. Canadian resources will focus on The Hudson''s Bay Company Archives, which are British in origin, and are now held at the Hudson''s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg. These materials reflect the profound influence of British language, culture and economics on the development of North America. There are many issues related to transcribing old documents that necessitate an introduction to the following topics: Writing Materials, Palaeography, Roman Numerals, Currency, The Calendar, The Religious Calendar, Weights and Measures, Origin of Family Names, Social Structure in Britain, Occupations, Introduction to Latin Terminology, Bibliography. Examples will be given in the text of the information booklet, but in order to achieve success and practise the new skills it is necessary to follow the prepared activities in the workbook. Answers will be found at the back of the workbook under each section heading. To gain experience with reading and interpreting documents, the workbook has been designed to reinforce topics discussed in the main text. As the student progresses through a new section continual practise is available using Review Exercises in the Workbook. Mastery develops with review and reinforcement. Weekly activities may appear lighter at the beginning of the course. As the student gains experience more tasks will be added, as review is not anticipated to be quite as time consuming as developing new skills. One student’s experience: To hear a student discussion regarding their experience with this course, please click here. (This is a large file and may take a minute or two to download.) Course Content Module 1 Writing Materials Paleography Module 2 Picture Clues to Help Unscramble Script Early Forms of Speed Writing Module 3 Roman Numerals Documents Using Roman Numerals Currency Module 4 Calendars, Ancient & Modern Module 5 Weights & Measures Module 6 The Church, The Manor & Social Life Module 7 Surnames Occupations Module 8 Latin Terminology Bibliography | ||||||||||||||||||
