Welcome to All Strangeness on the Ground, a site dedicated to the medieval bilingual French poet Charles d'Orleans (1394-1465) and his work. Here you will find information on Charles and his work and resources for medieval studies, as well as a bibliography of Charles-related materials and updates on the ongoing translation of British Library Harley MS. 682, the manuscript of Charles's English poetry.

News

January 10, 2025

I'm saddened to announce the passing of medieval scholar and Charles expert Mary-Jo Arn. She passed away December 14, 2024, at the age of 82. While I never got to meet her in person, I did have the honor of corresponding with her via email, and she knew of me even before we talked because of this website. She was a great, very accomplished scholar, and someone always ready to help other students and scholars. I wouldn't have been able to even start this project without her work on Charles.  

You can read more about her life and work here: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/mary-jo-arn-obituary?id=57117780

October 08, 2024

Major update!

The British Library's manuscripts are back online after a cyberattack last year forced them down. Currently the BL has 1000 manuscripts back up available. Unfortunately, Harley MS 682 is not one of them. In the meantime I'm reading through some articles I've saved and hopefully will finally update my bibliography. I also have been transcribing Bodleian MS. Fairfax 16, which has some Charles in it. I'll update this as soon as Harley MS 682 is up.

October 27, 2021

As you can see, the site is undergoing some changes. Google Sites Classic is no longer supported, so I've been forced to admit defeat and use one of their modern templates. I much preferred the older style, but this is what we have at the moment. I'm still getting used to this newfangled Web 3.0 thing so bear with me.

Where have I been since I last updated? In September, I started working at the local library, which has taken up most of my time. I've also been continuing my expansion of the bibliography for this site, so hopefully that will go online at some point perhaps next month. I've found a lot of articles in languages other than English and French, which is quite exciting, and I'm sure Charles, lover of languages that he was, would be pleased.

June 30, 2021

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been busy with my job (sadly, it has nothing to do with medieval poetry), I do have some more transcriptions I made by hand to add to the main document, hopefully those will be up soon.

Anyway, here's a recent interview by Boydell and Brewer with Dr. Mary-Jo Arn on her recent book Charles d'Orleans' English Aesthetic (which is also currently on sale with a coupon code!).

OLDER UPDATES (PRE-2021)

November 23, 2020

The mouse is not dead! I've just been very busy with work. However, I'm back to transcribing Harley 682 in earnest. In honor of Charles's birthday tomorrow, I've begun uploading my working transcription to this website. Feel free to check it out!

July, 2020

Along with updating the bibliography, I'm working on a separate page covering depictions of Charles in fiction (you can see it there on the menu now). I'm also working on building a Google Books library that will be made public that includes as many books involving Charles that I can find on GB. Most of the books I've found so far are in French and I'm especially keeping an eye out for the oldest works available.

March, 2020

Publisher Boydell & Brewer has a new book on Charles coming out in September, Charles d'Orléans' English Aesthetic The Form, Poetics, and Style of Fortunes Stabilnes edited by Mary-Jo Arn and R. D. Perry. Check out the catalog listing here: https://boydellandbrewer.com/charles-d-orleans-english-aesthetic.html.

Since I'm at home and don't have much to do, I'll be working more on transcribing Harley MS 682 and updating the bibliography section of this site. I had to do a complete system restore of my PC and lost my entire Zotero citations library, which had a sizeable bibliography.

November, 2019

HUGE UPDATE!!!! 

Harley MS 682 has been digitized and is now viewable on the British Library's website!! I'm beginning my own transcription of the book, which will help the Project so much. 

View it here.

May, 2019

Several updates. On May 8th, I graduated from Indiana University with a BA in history!

This site will be undergoing some changes. I've recently begun work on what I'm calling the Open Source Medievalist Project, which aims to curate resources for medieval studies online that are available and accessible to all. It's an expansion of the medieval resources page, and will have its own site, which I'm coding by hand on Neocities. I'll give an update on that when I'm ready to launch it. I will continue working on this site and the Charles content, so don't worry about that. We're not done with the translation project!

Charles d'Orleans in the Tower of London. London, British Library MS Royal 16 F. ii f.73r.