Dec. 7th, 2010 at 6:12 PM
This is a short list to a few sites which I have found particularly helpful in researching for writing medieval roles that I thought I would share with the rest of you in hopes you can use them as well.
Nightbringer - Invaluable if you're into Arthurian legend. I was first pointed here by damosel and I've never had a site I've found as helpful or informative when it comes to researching information about different aspects of the Arthurian legends. They have biographies on everyone, information about locations, traveling distances, money, summaries of different stories and everything is well cited enough that you can go and hunt down the books their information is taken from in your local libraries.
Society for Creative Anachronism - The Society for Creative Anachronism (or SCA) is a world-wide medieval re-enactment group. The main page for the society may not be terribly helpful however if you go under groups you'll find links to all the different kingdoms and from their local shires and groups etc. Most kingdom pages have many, many helpful and informative links on everything from weaponry, clothing, food, and names and numerous essays written by members of the group available for viewing by anyone who visits their sites.
Medieval Naming Guides: Welsh, Cornish & Breton - Put together by various members of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) this is a list of links to different reviews and articles about Welsh name structure in the middle ages which is very helpful in trying to create an authentic sounding name for your character. They've created these lists in hopes of helping their members when creating their period personas and I've found them very useful for roleplay.
A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - This will be especially helpful to those who write within the Merlin fandom as the spells used on the show are translated into a form of Middle English. This is a rather lengthy dictionary which I found on a site intended for helping the layman get through the works of Chaucer.
Middle English to Modern English Dictionary - Very much like the last link, but not quite as lengthy. This amounts to a list of common words but doesn't contain quite as much information as the previous dictionary though it is somewhat more easy to follow.
Long Ago Captures - I can't remember who first linked me here. It might have been damosel again, but maybe not. This is a gallery of high quality screencaps taken from period films. Their gallery is sorted by era and makes a great resource for icon makers.
Nightbringer - Invaluable if you're into Arthurian legend. I was first pointed here by damosel and I've never had a site I've found as helpful or informative when it comes to researching information about different aspects of the Arthurian legends. They have biographies on everyone, information about locations, traveling distances, money, summaries of different stories and everything is well cited enough that you can go and hunt down the books their information is taken from in your local libraries.
Society for Creative Anachronism - The Society for Creative Anachronism (or SCA) is a world-wide medieval re-enactment group. The main page for the society may not be terribly helpful however if you go under groups you'll find links to all the different kingdoms and from their local shires and groups etc. Most kingdom pages have many, many helpful and informative links on everything from weaponry, clothing, food, and names and numerous essays written by members of the group available for viewing by anyone who visits their sites.
Medieval Naming Guides: Welsh, Cornish & Breton - Put together by various members of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) this is a list of links to different reviews and articles about Welsh name structure in the middle ages which is very helpful in trying to create an authentic sounding name for your character. They've created these lists in hopes of helping their members when creating their period personas and I've found them very useful for roleplay.
A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - This will be especially helpful to those who write within the Merlin fandom as the spells used on the show are translated into a form of Middle English. This is a rather lengthy dictionary which I found on a site intended for helping the layman get through the works of Chaucer.
Middle English to Modern English Dictionary - Very much like the last link, but not quite as lengthy. This amounts to a list of common words but doesn't contain quite as much information as the previous dictionary though it is somewhat more easy to follow.
Long Ago Captures - I can't remember who first linked me here. It might have been damosel again, but maybe not. This is a gallery of high quality screencaps taken from period films. Their gallery is sorted by era and makes a great resource for icon makers.