The Aberdeen Burgh Records: Historical Languages, Investigations, Creative Responses

International Summer School logo, 21st - 25th June 2021

Monday 21st of June, 2.30 - 5pm 

Dr Jackson Armstrong; Dr William Hepburn; Dr Claire Hawes, University of Abderdeen; Dr Wim Peters, University of Mainz

About the Presenter

Dr Jackson Armstrong is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Aberdeen. He has led and co-led two major funded projects investigating Aberdeen's UNESCO-designated medieval burgh records.

About the Session

This session explores the Aberdeen Registers Online: 1398-1511 (ARO): from the underlying burgh records which survive from the middle ages, and the context of the languages within them (Latin and Middle Scots), to the creation of the ARO as a digital resource in the language of XML. It presents the digital humanities work which is currently underway in the course of the FLAG project, investigating the ARO alongside a comparable digital resource from medieval Augsburg. It explores an exciting set of creative responses to the themes and language in the ARO, in the form of contemporary song-writing and musical performance.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will:

  • gain an understanding of an important new digital resource for Scottish history and languages
  • have been introduced to current digital humanities investigation of historical resources
  • have been introduced to the process of creative response to historical records
  • gain insight into the process of 'translation' for new public audiences.

Who might be interested?

This session will be of particular interest to Postgraduate and PhD students in all disciplines of the arts and humanities. 

Click Here to Register 


First published: 19 May 2021