M. Alison Stones

I aim to work with technical collaborator Ken Sochats (VISC, U of Pittsburgh, non-stipendiary) and a graduate research assistant to implement a new phase of the long-term Lancelot-Grail project which presents digitzed images of manuscripts of Arthurian romance for comparison and analysis using a pioneering, innovative, GIS-based approach in which we treat the manuscript page as a conceptual map. We now plan a comparative component whereby selected manuscripts and their illustrative contents may be cross-compared in order to determine what elements in these popular stories were perceived by the commissioners of the manuscripts as best reflecting their personal interests, be they in legal or spiritual matters or in issues of debate and discussion of cultural values.