The 32nd KEELE

LATIN and PALAEOGRAPHY SUMMER SCHOOL

25—31 July 2009

(Saturday to Friday)

This week-long, annual summer school run by Keele University provides expert tuition in small groups for professional and amateur historians, genealogists, archive students, and postgraduate researchers who wish to acquire or improve their skills in reading and transcribing medieval and early modern documents from English archives, relating to both national and local subjects.

It attracts some 60 to 70 students each year from all parts of the UK, and also from North America and elsewhere.

Teaching

The teaching takes place in small groups of students, meeting daily (including the initial Sunday) for two morning sessions and an afternoon session. After tea in the afternoon, there are opportunities for individual sessions with the tutors.

The emphasis is on learning the practical skills necessary for deciphering and understanding medieval and early modern documents, using good quality photocopies of original documents from a range of archives in the UK. Tutors guide the students in tackling documents, giving advice on readings, as well as providing information as appropriate on the historical context.

The great advantage of a week-long school is that for those who are completely, or relatively, new to the subject, there is ample time for the new information to sink in and for them to be able to apply it in practice before it has been forgotten. Many students remark how they begin to make real progress after the first hesitant day.

Tutors

The tutors are all expert teachers of Latin and palaeography, some from the University of Keele but others from other institutions or with considerable experience in working in archives.

Social activities

Although the Summer School is certainly hard work for both tutors and students, it is also a very social event, with participants sharing their interests and making new friends and collaborators in historical research projects. There is an evening lecture, and an afternoon visit to a place of historic interest in the area. And the food is regarded as being of a high standard!

The setting

The Summer School takes place at Keele University's attractive campus in North Staffordshire, and some evening meals take place in Keele Hall, a 19th-century mansion set in parkland with lakes.

Other evening means and all breakfasts take place in Comus Restaurant in the more modern Chancellor's Building, near to the teaching rooms.

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The modules

INTRODUCTORY COURSES

Medieval Latin

for complete beginners, and emphasising the form and structure of the language as found in the Middle Ages

Reading medieval documents

looking at a range of documents with different kinds of handwriting mainly between the 1100 and 1500, with the emphasis on learning scribal conventions

16th- and 17th-century documents

working mainly on a range of documents in English

INTERMEDIATE COURSES and SPECIALIST COURSES

Courses for 2009 are now being prepared. Past ones have included Anglo-Saxon documents, medieval and early modern conveyances, and aspects of medieval social and legal history. Details will be finalised by the end of 2008.

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Further information

Please contact the Director of Studies : Dr Nigel Tringham, School of Humanities, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG; telephone: (01782) 733282 or (01785) 276037; email: n.j.tringham@his.keele.ac.uk

Programmes and application forms will be issued early in 2009 and can be obtained from Mrs Helen McGarry, Centre for Continuing and Professional Education, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG; telephone: (01782) 733244; email: h.c.mcgarry@cpe.keele.ac.uk