Agents persons, peoples and institutions
Browse and discover
A module for identifying agents - encompassing persons, peoples and organisations - and managing information about them has been around for many years, continually evolving as time went by, but what was absent all this time is a public interface for accessing relevant data in a user-friendly way.
This is a first attempt at offering such an interface, which is provided "as-is" and should be considered beta-quality for now (not that there is any official product release cycle as such but using the label is a convenient means to sound the right alarm bells). It currently consists of a basic search, aggregated data overviews for individual agents, and hover-card labels that you will meet elsewhere in the catalogue.
I am aware of duplicates, uneven coverage and other shortcomings that typically arise from the progressive nature of this website or simply, lack of personpower. An earlier version of the interface was available to editors partly because it helps us address some of those issues. None of these objections, however, seemed to weigh heavily against the alternative, which is having nothing at all to offer.
Note that for convenience's sake, many agents are not formally indexed but are nonetheless included by exclusive virtue of being linked. It is a wonderful forte of the system that allows us to retrieve and bring together disparate data from disparate data sources, but some useful metadata will be missing and discoverability is more limited as a result. For instance, we may be linking to a scribe whose name and associated data can be retrieved and presented, but without, say, a floruit it will be difficult to find this person within the appropriate time range. I say "difficult" because it is possible, to an extent, to rely on the dates we have, if any, for associated objects (manuscripts, scribal hands), but such a circuitous approach comes with limitations of its own and is not necessarily methodologically sound.
Meanwhile, I hope that the new interface will improve your experience in using this website. Next up are thematic categories for scribes (in the broadest, non-pejorative sense of the word), authors and scholars.
Last added
- Eoghan Ó Caoimh1656–1726Munster poet and scribe.
- Stiabhna Ríghiss. xviiex / s. xviii1Stiabhna Ríghis/Rís or Stephen Rice, a Munster scribe who became active in Dublin and befriended Tadhg Ó Neachtáin.
- Piet Avonds
- Thomas Gee [d. 1845]1780–1845Welsh printer and founder of Gwasg Gee. His son was the preacher and journalist Thomas Gee.
- Robert Davies [d. 1835]1769–1835Welsh poet and grammarian, a native of Nantglyn (Denbighshire).
- John Goolde [friar and scribe]fl. c.17th century, first halfFriar, guardian of the Franciscan friary in Cashel, and scribe who was responsible for a copy of the Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae and had worked together with the Four Masters.
- Boethiusd. 524Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, a Roman senator, statesman, philosopher and historian. His best known work may be De consolatione philosophiae, which he wrote in prison after running into conflict at the Ostrogothic court. Others include De topicis differentiis, De institutione arithmetica, De institutione musica and five theological treatises known collectively as the Opuscula sacra.
- Jehan Lagadeucfl. 15th centuryBreton priest in Plougonven (Tréguier) and lexicographer, who compiled a Breton-French-Latin dictionary, the Catholicon (1464).
- Cosmo Innes1798–1874Scottish judge and antiquarian.
- Alcuind. 804English clergyman, scholar and poet.
- John Davies [d. 1626]bap. 1569–d. 1626English lawyer, poet and politician, who spent part of his career as a legal officer and adviser on behalf of the Crown in Ireland.
- John Beaton [d. 1657]1594–1657Scottish physician whose family was based in Pennycross (Isle of Mull), principal physician to the MacLeans of Duart.
- Donald MacQueen [minister of Kilmuir]fl. c.1715–d. 1785Church of Scotland minister of Kilmuir, Isle of Skye. He is one of the ministers who were visited by (and briefly joined) Samuel Johnson and James Boswell on their tour of the Hebrides.
- Beaton family
- Bernard de Gordonfl. 1270–1330French physician, professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier and author of a number of medical treatises. His Lilium medicinae was translated into Irish.
- Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library
Library belonging to Villanova University.
- Sancreed church
Parish church of Sancreed, Cornwall. The place is first recorded in the 12th century as Egglossant and from the following century onwards, identified by its patron saint, Sancred or Sancret (Orme, Saints of Cornwall).
- Redruth, Kresen Kernow
Archival centre of Cornwall. It houses collections previously held by the Cornwall Record Office, Cornish Studies Library and other archival institutions.
- Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society
Cornish charity organisation. The Cornwall Polytechnic Society, as it was first known, was founded in 1832 by the Fox family of Falmouth, Cornwall, and received royal patronage in 1835.
- Saint-Méen abbey
- Chichester, West Sussex Record OfficeCounty record office holding the archives on behalf of West Sussex.
- Bilbao, Biblioteca Foral de Bizkaia
- Nonantola abbey
- Honourable and Loyal Society of Antient BritonsWelsh society based in London, which was founded in 1715 and had ceased to be active by the end of the same century.
- Welsh Charity School
Originally the British Charity School in London, founded in 1718 by the ‘Most Honourable and Loyal Society of Antient Britons’, in some ways the precursor to the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. It housed a considerable collection of manuscripts, which were presented to the British Museum in the early 1840s. The school moved to Ashford in 1857, became a girls school in 1882 and was renamed to St David's School in 1967.
- Tintern abbey [Co. Wexford]Cistercian monastery.
- Tintern abbey
- Angers, Saint-AubinMonastery of Saint-Aubin in Angers.
- Nanhyfer [Nevern, Pembrokeshire]
Church on the river Nevern (Nyfer) in Pembrokeshire, said to have been an early church (clas) founded by St Brynach.
- Alt Fharannáin
Randomised results
A random selecton of authors and those so described.
