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The Best Abbey Links
Tourist, Informative or Archaeological.
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This collection of links showcases websites that either offer information about a number of abbeys (grouped by order, perhaps, such as the Cistercians), or delve deeply about the history of abbeys in general or one abbey in particular (such as Psalmodi in France).  For the larger sites, such as Future Museum or Scotland Gazetteer, enter search terms--either 'abbey' in general, or the name of the particular abbey you are looking for.  I'll likely add more links as my Abbey Pages grow.

This one goes at the top, thanks to University College London!!  The UCL English Monastics Archives page is a searchable database where you can find information on the English monasteries, including statistics and documents.  You can search by order, by house, by county...  What a cool thing!


General Links
Britain
Europe
 

General Links
  • The University of Glasgow's Archaeology Research Division covers a wide range of information including this page, Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, which lists links to sites such as Sutton Hoo, Rivenhall, Hamwick, pottery, buckets, urns, charters, maps...http://www.gla.ac.uk/archaeology/
  • For arm chair scholars, the University of Texas at Austin offers the World Lecture Hall.  Those interested in finding university courses and materials online can search by keyword or subject.  From their site: "World Lecture Hall publishes links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver course materials in any language." http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh/
  • The BBC offers a good selection of general history pages through their History site. 
  • Archnet is a sort of "take you anywhere" collection of Archaeological links maintained and hosted through the Archaeological Research Institute at Arizona State University.  The table of contents page is available in a number of languages, including English.  http://archnet.asu.edu/
  • This site, The Cistercians in Yorkshire, focuses on the North Yorkshire Abbeys Byland, Kirkstall, Fountains, Rievaulx, and Roche, but offers much, much more including this comprehesive list of abbeys and information and an overview of Cistercian life.  http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/  What are monks?  What do monks do?  Those questions are answered here. 
  • Williams College monastery excavations offers a close up look at an abandoned monastery,  making the information gleaned there valuable for any general study.  The dig focuses on the Benedictine Monastery of Saints Peter and Paul, at Psalmodi in France.

Britain
  • Wharram Percy is a "lost medieval village" brought to the web through Ken Thomkin's Lost Village pages at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. 
  • Under the umbrella of their general history pages, the BBC also offers pages with a focus on Scottish History.  Pages with information about abbeys can be found  under the sidebar heading 'early church.'  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory
  • The Gazetteer for Scotland claims to be "The first comprehensive gazetteer produced for Scotland since 1885, it includes tourist attractions, industries and historical sites, together with histories of family names, biographies of famous people and descriptions of historical events associated with Scotland."  It is a resource that includes maps and timelines.  The project was created by Bruce Gittings and David Munro and is supported by the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.  http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/
  • The Future Museum of South West Scotland brings together museum collections from a number of Scottish regions.  From their site: "The Future Museum project aims to maximise access to museum and gallery collections and deepen people's understanding of the history of the region through the website."  http://www.futuremuseum.co.uk

  • The University of Glasgow offers this page of links to Scottish Archaeology Sites on the web.
  • This is an extraordinary and wonderful heritage site--even more so if you read Gaelic. CELT is a "corpus of electronic texts" capturing and publishing the historic texts of Ireland.  Their Mission:
    "To bring the wealth of Irish literary and historical culture (in Irish, Latin, Anglo-Norman French, and English) to the Internet in a rigorously scholarly and user-friendly project for the widest possible range of readers and researchers."  http://www.ucc.ie/celt/
  • The Council for British Archaeology is a searchable database of articles, events and other information.   Included on the site is the magazine British Archaeology that is packed with tidbits of interest and the latest finds, as well as links to other archaeological sites on the web.  http://www.britarch.ac.uk/

Europe
  • If you speak French, Romanes.com offers extensive informations about French and other European religious sites, exploring Gothic, Romanesque, and Cistercian art and architecture. If you don't speak French, there are plenty of photographs to keep you busy.  Romanes.com does have an English Index, but the information there is limited.
  • The Christian Catacombs of Rome is brought to the web by the Istituto Salesiano San Callisto - Roma, and is an Italian site with many translations, including English. The site is designed for the needs of tourists, arm chair tourists, students, and pilgrims.
  • Another site for Italy, comprehensive and in English, is Bill Thayer's A Gazetteer of Italy, which includes an extensive section on Italian Churches.  The Gazetteer features imformative guides and hundreds of photos.  A really wonderful site.
  • A list of Spanish Monasteries and links to information from libros de Guadalajara y Castilla-La Mancha including a book by Antonio Herrera Casado. A great site--in Spanish.  My two college semesters of Spanish are sorely tested.
  • More pages about France, this one a wealth of information with photographs as well.  Cathedrals and Churches in France was put together by Vic Freund at Centralia College in Centralia, in Washington state.





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