from Medieval Academy News

Recent CD-ROMs: How Useful Are They?
by Catherine Karkov

Recent years have seen a significant increase in the number of CD-ROMs on medieval topics, some designed for the classroom, some for specialized research purposes, some for use in both teaching and research. Four recent CDs on early medieval Insular topics are likely to appeal to medievalists in a wide range of disciplines.

Michael Herity and Aidan Breen’s, The “Cathach” of Colum Cille: An Introduction (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2002, PC and Mac, $40) consists of a booklet and CD-ROM which together provide an excellent introduction to a well-known but little-studied manuscript. For those unfamiliar with the manuscript, the “Cathach” (Battler) is a fragment of a Vulgate psalter containing portions of psalms 30–105 and dating from the late sixth or early seventh century. It has traditionally been attributed to St. Colum Cille (521–97).

The minimal decoration consists of decorated initials, crosses, and fish or fish-like beasts, but it looks forward to that of the more lavishly decorated Insular manuscripts of the seventh through ninth centuries, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels. The CD contains a complete color facsimile, a transcription of the text (originally published by H. J. Lawlor in 1916–17), and the Douay-Reims translation of the psalms. It is handy to have Lawlor’s transcription republished in this format, as the original publication can be difficult to obtain.

The manuscript pages can be juxtaposed with the transcription or the English translation (but not both), but it is possible to print the transcription so that all three can be consulted simultaneously. The CD is not searchable, but the texts of individual psalms are easily accessed.

On the negative side, the size of the navigation bar is distracting, as is the background done in shades of brown, reminiscent of old sepia photographs. The booklet contains information on the provenance, history, sources, decoration, text, and punctuation of the manuscript, as well as a section on comparanda.

The package is marketed as a booklet accompanied by a CD-ROM, but it might better have been marketed as a CD accompanied by a booklet; indeed, it is unclear why the information contained in the booklet could not have been included on the CD. While neither the booklet nor the CD add significantly to scholarship on the manuscript, the latter does make the manuscript accessible to a much wider audience and, as a facsimile, will be of use to teachers and scholars of early medieval history, art history, and palaeography alike.

At $29.95, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Turning the Pages (London: British Library, 2000, PC and Mac) seems a bargain, but it is not much of one. The technology is old (it displays in 256 colors), which means that it is extremely difficult to load on newer machines, and the colors are not true, especially on a Mac. It is available free of charge at http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitalization2.html, so why buy the CD?

It is intended for the general public rather than for the scholar or student and reproduces the major illustrated pages only. It provides students with a brief overview of how the program of illustration works, but of course one can do that by going to the website or using the two-volume facsimile published in 1956–1960.

The background information on the manuscript and the audio narrative that accompanies each image or opening are woefully out of date. Many will have particular problems with the decidedly modern notion that Aldred’s tenth-century gloss constitutes an act of vandalism and with the pointed contrast of the script of the gloss with the “clear and regular clarity” of Eadfrith’s script. A complete digital facsimile of the Lindisfarne Gospels is soon to be published by the British Library and Faksimile Verlag, but it will retail for quite a bit more than $29.95.

David Burnley’s, Old English: A Multimedia History (London: British Library, 2000, $75) is for Windows only. Burnley has divided his material into six sections: Historical Background, Anglo-Saxon Sites to Visit, Ancestors of English, Teach Yourself Phonetics, Old English Texts, and Old English Language. The last section is further subdivided into Reconstructing Languages, Old English Writing System, Old English Sounds, Old English Morphology, Old English Syntax, Word-Formation, Borrowing, Dialect, and Poetic Language.

While its range is broad, this is a CD designed first and foremost for students of Old English who need a very basic introduction to the material culture and history of Anglo-Saxon England. Burnley has provided edited texts from the major poetic codices as well as selected prose texts, all of which can be copied and pasted, making them easy to tailor to individual needs.

The Historical Background section is organized around a timeline linked to key dates from 400 to 1154 and providing information on language, history, and culture for each date. We might not all agree about the inclusion of some dates and omission of others, but in general the coverage and range of images and information is adequate for student purposes. Web links are provided for certain sites, objects, and manuscripts so that one can, for example, access the British Museum images of the objects from Mound 1 from the page on Sutton Hoo.

Despite the web links, I found the section on culture particularly problematic. Clicking on 635, for example, brings up a discussion of Sutton Hoo that fails to define such key terms as “Style I” or “Style II” animal ornament. The section on the Ruthwell cross also repeats the old error that the runic poem on the narrow sides of the monument is “from” The Dream of the Rood.

In addition to the time line, selected sites can be accessed via a series of clickable maps. There are bibliographic links for each site, though many of them are sadly limited. Finally, while navigating within sections is straightforward, navigating from section to section can be difficult. This CD provides no background information that is not already available in current printed editions, textbooks, and exhibition catalogs, and many may well prefer to use texts and/or translations that conform to their own preferred editorial conventions.

Martin K. Foys’s, The Bayeux Tapestry: Digital Edition (Woodbridge, Eng., and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2003, PC and Mac, $60) is by far the most impressive and useful of the CDs reviewed here. This is a truly complete edition that allows the user to scroll through the entire length of the tapestry, or move directly to individual panels. A description of the action and imagery, with a discussion of the relevant scholarship, is provided for each scene, supplemented by a transcription and translation of the inscriptions and a location map.

The zoom feature allows for magnification down to the level of the stitching. The CD also includes a glossary, genealogical tables, maps, a panorama of the battlefield, and reproductions of the facsimiles by Montfaucon, Stothard, and the Leek embroidery now in the Reading City Museum. The latter are particularly useful for understanding how much of the tapestry has been restored and what impact the restorations have on the interpretation of particular scenes, especially in the final panels of the tapestry.

Unfortunately, scenes from the tapestry and the facsimiles cannot be displayed simultaneously, but it is possible to extract individual images to design personalized slide shows. The museum section allows for the display of the front and back of individual areas of the tapestry and includes a catalogue of comparanda and associated objects. Links are provided to the bibliography, glossary, and facsimiles via key words highlighted in the commentary.

No new research is presented here, but the discussion of scholarship to date is very useful, and the bibliography does include entries for Foy’s own more scholarly articles. The Bayeux Tapestry is easy to use. It is extremely useful for teaching as it allows one to show aspects of the tapestry and juxtapose multiple images and details in a way that slides do not, as well as providing instant links to scholarly opinions and bibliography, and it is useful for research purposes for all of the same reasons.

The results. Those who produce CDs for research or teaching purposes should bear in mind that there should be a reason to use them. They should be competitively priced (as are the CDs reviewed here) and easy to install and navigate (as are The “Cathach” and The Bayeux Tapestry), and they should allow one to do things that cannot be done with books alone or via web links. Facsimiles are always welcome because they can be used for both research and teaching, but the quality of the imagery must be high, and they must allow for more than simply “turning the pages.” A CD like The Bayeux Tapestry that permits the user to view multiple images and extract images for personal use, that provides a transcription and translation of the text, and that provides easy links to general background, scholarly information, and bibliographic sources offers an excellent model.