Open Educational Resources, or OERs, are freely available online didactic materials. Among them you can find Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), podcasts, textbooks, manuals, edu-oriented editions, and other educational materials. We gathered information about such endeavors below. Most of them is devoted to legal historical sources of the Middle Ages and early modern period.
If you know about such resources, or maybe even you authored and produced OERs, please contact us, so we can spread the knowledge about your work!
We invite you to listen to the podcasts prepared by Emanuele Conte
Legal History from the European Perspective. CLCLCL Project
Available on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Selected podcasts are also available with video transcription. Here also presentations: Part I and Part II.
List of podcasts:
LH0021: Why Legal History? A discussion with Emanuele Conte and John Hudson [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0030: Why Do We Study Legal History? [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0150: What Is a Law? [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0180: Transformation of Property and Possession [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0190: The Traditional Historiography and Legal Change [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0290: A New Idea of Legal Text [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0320: The Method of Glossators [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0321: The Dialectical Method [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0330: Canon Law [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0340: Feudal Law [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0342: A Discussion on Fiefs with Emanuele Conte, Attilio Stella and Matthew McHaffie [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0350: The Universities [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0360: The System of the Ius Commune [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0370: Ius Commune and Legal Pluralism [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0379: Europe in 1100 [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0390: The Judiciary Abstraction [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0400: Procedure in England and on the Continent [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0409: Thomas Becket [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0420: Common Law, Royal Laws, and Parliament [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0430: How Exceptional Was English Common Law? [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0440: Institutional Framework [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0450: Crisis of the Universal Powers and the End of the Middle Ages [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0451: The Modern Age [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0460: Legal Humanism [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0470: Legal Culture in France [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0480: The Protestant Reformation [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0490: Hotman between Geneva and France [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0500: Customs [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0510: Customary National Laws [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0520: Common Law as Customary Law [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0740: American Constitution as a Model [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0743: A Discussion with Andrew Cecchinato on Revolutions [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0815: France at War [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0820: Absolutism and Codification [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0850: Jurisprudence and Codification [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0860: France as a Model [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0900: Introduction to the 19th Century [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0910: Savigny and the Historical School [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0920: The Germanists [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
LH0930: Germanists and Gewere [Apple Podcasts] [Spotify]
Podcast series of The National Archives, UK
Annual lecture of the Pipe Roll Society (2014): Formal record and courtroom reality in 13th and 14th century England, Professor Paul Brand
Authority, Legitimacy and Orthodoxy: the Accession of Henry V in 1413, Dr James Ross
Closing the last day: death, memory and landholding in the Inquisitions Post-Mortem, 1216 – 1660, Sean Cunningham
From Magna Carta to the parliamentary state: the Fine Rolls of King Henry III 1216-1272, Professor David Carpenter
Henry III Fine Rolls, Professor David Carpenter
Heralds and heraldry at The National Archives, Dr Adrian Ailes
‘An impenetrable tangle or an under-used mine of information?’ The Court of Common Pleas and its records, c1200-1875, Dr James Ross
King John and Magna Carta, Adrian Jobson
Locality, land and livelihood: sources for early local history, Dr James Ross and Sean Cunningham
Magna Carta: Law, Liberty and Legacy, Julian Harrison
Magna Carta: What more is there to say?, Professor Nicholas Vincent
Medieval criminals and the law, Dr James Ross
Star Chamber stories: using records of the early modern equity courts, Sean Cunningham
Other podcasts
E-lectures devoted to legal history at the University of Zurich.
Sarah Ifft Decker's podcast one medieval history in general.
Medieval German Studies at the University of Oxford. Lecture series covering the literary, cultural and linguistic heritage of the German speaking lands from 800 to 1600. Special areas of interests are the transmission of text in manuscript and early print, mysticism and devotional writing and courtly literature.
Centre for Legal History at Edinburgh Law School uploaded several videos concerning legal history.
The lecture on sources of the Magdeburg Law in the Kingdom of Poland, prepared by Maciej Mikuła (in Polish) is available on the Jagiellonian Univeristy website. The course consists of five modules.
Webinar (The National Archive, UK): An introduction to medieval and early modern sources for family historians, Dr Nick Barratt
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is an ample collection of online primary sources suited for educational purposes. The scope of sources is rather extensive and legal historical sources are included. The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook and the Internet Modern History Sourcebook serve the same purpose for respective periods.
If interested in medieval canon law, Roman law, or ius commune, on should definitely see the website of an eminent scholar, Professor Kenneth Pennington, where various lectures and courses regarding canon law, Roman Law and ius commune in the Middle Ages are available.
Also Ad fontes project website offers a variety of exercises concerning working with historical sources.
If you read German, you can also see Mittelalterliche Geschichte website which provides an online course on medieval history, focusing on sources and including historical auxiliary sciences. The project is affiliated with Universität Augsburg.
General & Latin
Bartholomew's World, Stanford University. Digital paleography tutorial that takes users step-by-step through identifying individual letters. Texts are drawn from the writing of Bartholomeus Anglicus.
Bess of Hardwick’s Letters developed by The University of Glasgow. There is a tutorial on the site entitled: Reading Early Modern Handwriting with 18 examples of particular hands.
Brigham Young University has a ‘Script Tutorial’ which offers guidance in the deciphering of documents written in archaic handwriting styles or alphabets. The tutorials and materials gathered on the website are meant to help a variety of people learn more about old scripts and how to use that knowledge to analyze and interpret the past. The concentration is on European scripts, particularly those in use between 1500 and 1800.
The Durham Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Learning Centre offers online courses designed to provide quality skills training in various aspects of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. The Centre is offering two courses: Latin European Medieval Palaeography and Early Modern English Palaeography 1500-1700.
The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library has an online course in Latin paleography, also arabic and syriac paleography and a paleographical album.
Interactive Album of Mediaeval Palaeography provides exercises which may help you to develop your skills in the field of reading medieval texts.
The National Archives (UK) has an online tutorials on paleography, that will help you to read documents from the medieval period and beyond, through practical activities and useful examples.
English, Irish, and Scottish Paleography
Digipal | Digital Resource and Database of Palaeography, Manuscript Studies and Diplomatic, King's College, London. Open-access resource for the study of medieval handwriting, particularly that produced in England during the years 1000–1100, the time of Æthelred, Cnut and William the Conqueror. Designed to allow users to see samples of handwriting from the period and to compare them quickly and easily.
‘Early Modern Scottish Palaeography: Reading Scotland's Records’, The University of Glasgow, offers an online course that is paid.
University of Cambridge prepared an online course English Handwriting Online (1500-1700).
Folgerpedia, The Folger Shakespeare Library. The site contains a list of online resources for early modern English paleography.
Late Medieval English Scribes, The University of York, the University of Oxford and the University of Sheffield). Online catalog of all scribal hands (identified or unidentified) that appear in the manuscripts of the English writings of five major Middle English authors: Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, John Trevisa, William Langland and Thomas Hoccleve.
Scottish Handwriting, The National Records of Scotland. The website offers online tuition in paleography for historians, genealogists and other researchers who are looking for guidance reading manuscript historical records written in Scotland in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University has a tutorial to learn 'Secretary Hand', the most common form of handwriting used by writers of the English language from the late 15th through the mid-17th century.
French Paleography
French Renaissance Paleography, The Newberry Library. The site presents over 100 carefully selected French manuscripts written between 1300 and 1700, with tools for deciphering them and learning about their social, cultural, and institutional settings.
Theleme Techniques pour l'Historien en Ligne : Études, Manuels, Exercices, Bibliographies, École nationale des chartes. The Sorbonne's online course offers an introduction to French hand-press print typography, and medieval and early modern paleography (handwriting) instruction in French, with lessons and a set of exemplary texts.
The website Theleme hosted by the École nationale des chartes also contains bibliographies, abbreviation dictionaries and pages from digitized manuscripts.
Another website that is devoted to medieval paleography is Paléographie médiévale.
German Paleography
Terminologie: Gotische Schriftarten. German language site providing digital copies of manuscripts, including an overview to different German handwriting styles.
Italian Paleography
The Italian Paleography, The Newberry Library. The Italian Paleography website presents 102 Italian documents and manuscripts written between 1300 and 1700, with tools for deciphering them and learning about their social, cultural, and institutional settings.
Spanish Paleography
Curso de Paleografia Latino Hispanoamericana, Víctor Hugo Arévalo Jordán. Database containing instruction on five periods of writing from the medieval period to the nineteenth century.
Littera Visigothica. Visigothic script is the the most characteristic medieval writing system of the Iberian Peninsula. The website invites users to explore Visigothic script from a multidisciplinary point of view.
Spanish Paleography Digital Teaching & Learning Tool, CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. Online interactive resource designed to assist users in learning, deciphering and reading manuscripts written in Spanish during the early modern period, roughly from the late 15th to the 18th century.
