Computer-Based Study of Arthurian Romance

FAIN: RZ-20622-00

University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA 15260-6133)
Alison Stones (Project Director: September 1999 to present)

To support a study of three early fourteenth-century illustrated texts of the Lancelot-Graal romance, to be prepared by an international team of Old French literature scholars, art historians, andinformation science specialists.

This project will make available on computer, CD, and in printed form, pages of illuminated manuscripts of the immensely popular medieval Arthurian romances from three early fourteenth-century copies of the Lancelot-Graal romance housed in major research libraries, together with description, analysis, and discussion of those pages. An international team of Old French specialists, art historians, and information science specialists will collaborate using a unique adaptation of Geographic Information System software to store, transmit, and link a variety of kinds of information about these images. We expect our pioneering use of this software to be transferrable to a wide range of different intellectual problems which extend far outside the medieval manuscript as well as offering a model for future manuscript studies.