tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2342742228702877343.post5377741895939578086..comments2024-02-11T19:31:25.745+00:00Comments on The Yorkist Age: The National Archives are cool!!Brian Wainwrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16867772590464992131noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2342742228702877343.post-31398706767186094542012-03-16T07:21:03.929+00:002012-03-16T07:21:03.929+00:00Some deranged 21st century billionaire philanthrop...Some deranged 21st century billionaire philanthropist really ought to give a few dozen million (pounds/dollars/euros take your pick) to Google for the purpose of digitizing and transcribing some of the salient document archives and making them freely available to internet researchers.<br /><br />Optical character recognition of anything non-printed and even printed stuff much before 1850 is naturally impossible of contemporary technology, and I shudder to think what would happen if you gave a computer Elizabethan Secretary hand to read, still less Middle English, but it will only get easier as time goes on.<br /><br />(Obviously a Strong AI would quickly digest all the scholarship on various handwriting through the ages and transcribe medieval documents with footnotes as quickly as they could be digitally photographed, but then a Strong AI might quickly get bored and irritated with such a task. A bored and angry Strong AI is second only to a paranoid Strong AI in control of a nuclear arsenal on the list of "really bad things" in science fiction.)JJFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11948014831964413383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2342742228702877343.post-64435965975136037012008-10-21T21:00:00.000+01:002008-10-21T21:00:00.000+01:00I love browsing the archives too - and I'm so grat...I love browsing the archives too - and I'm so grateful that so much is available online.<BR/><BR/>Mind you, visiting the maproom (where the Medieval docs are) in person is, as far as I'm concerned, a much scarier process - and a pretty useless exercise unless you know how to read Medieval Latin in very tiny, illegible script!!! So thank godness for all the wonderful people who have done the transcriptions for us!Jules Frusherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207281934232383811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2342742228702877343.post-62208035935703351532008-10-20T10:28:00.000+01:002008-10-20T10:28:00.000+01:00I can (and frequently do) spend hours happily brow...I can (and frequently do) spend hours happily browsing through the National Archives. I've found loads of great, really helpful stuff! Probably my favourite thing is a 1317 petition from Tupholme Abbey to Edward II, saying that the costs of finding monks to pray for Piers Gaveston's soul are a 'heavy burden'.Kathryn Warnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00397714441908100576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2342742228702877343.post-29655191846007982812008-10-20T10:13:00.000+01:002008-10-20T10:13:00.000+01:00Maybe it's with growing up in another time, when r...Maybe it's with growing up in another time, when research meant travelling to various locations and hoping they'd deign to give access to a humble amateur, but I find the present National Archives set up almost too amazing to believe!Brian Wainwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16867772590464992131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2342742228702877343.post-44480680756906392582008-10-19T20:37:00.000+01:002008-10-19T20:37:00.000+01:00They are indeed cool! I ordered a PDF scan of the ...They are indeed cool! I ordered a PDF scan of the petition in which Hugh le Despenser the even younger asked to be let out of prison--great to look at a copy. I also ordered a copy of the first Duchess of Buckingham's will, but couldn't read most of it, so I finally conceded defeat and had someone transcribe it for me. But at least it's there!Susan Higginbothamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517907583894026599noreply@blogger.com