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MARGOT history

The MARGOT group analyses and publishes French texts from the Medieval and Early Modern period, both electronically and in paper format. The major phases of research activity are listed below.


  1. 2020
    1. Publication of 600 annotations: Roman de la rose

      Publication of 600 annotations describing in detail the 100 medieval manuscript miniatures from Roman de la rose manuscripts available at MARGOT. English and French versions.

  2. 2018
    1. Publication: McWebb, Christine, Lori Walters, Laurie Postlewaite, eds. Guest issue of Scholar & Feminist Online of the Barnard Center for Research on Women 15.1, 2018.
    2. Development of imageMAT

      Development of imageMAT, an interoperable, web-based image annotation software in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, and others. Complete in prototype

  3. 2017
    1. Publication: McWebb, Christine and Lori Walters, eds. Guest issue of Digital Philology: A Journal for Medieval Cultures 5; title: Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age 2, 6.1, 2017.
  4. 2016
    1. Complete redesign of MARGOT site
  5. 2014
    1. Fourth MARGOT conference

      The fourth international MARGOT colloquium at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.

      Conference: 2014, New York

  6. 2013
    1. Publication of 56 manuscripts of Christine de Pizan’s works

      Publication of 56 of these manuscripts on Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France and Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts.

      Bibliothèque nationale de France

      Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts

    2. Digitization of 56 manuscripts of Christine de Pizan’s works (fifteenth’s century) in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, University of Edinburgh, Oxford University.

      These manuscripts represent the entire collection of works by Christine  de Pizan at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Composition of short and long codicological descriptions, illustrations titles and metadata.

  7. 2011
    1. Publication: McWebb, Christine and Helen Swift, eds. Selected Proceedings from the Third International MARGOT Conference

      Publication: McWebb, Christine and Helen Swift, eds. Selected Proceedings from the Third International MARGOT Conference in special issue of Digital Medievalist 7, 2011: University of Lethbridge.

      Read: Digtial Medievalist

  8. 2010
    1. Third MARGOT conference

      The third international MARGOT colloquium at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.

      Conference: 2010, New York

  9. 2009
    1. Publication: Poirier, Guy, C. McWebb, D. Russell, F. Paré, eds. Mélanges offerts à Hannah Fournier, Québec: PUL, 2008.
    2. Acquisition of CANTUS: A Database of Latin Liturgical Chant (370,000 entries to date), in collaboration with Charles University, Prague.

      The CANTUS database was added to MARGOT. MARGOT is moving into software development for humanities students and scholars with imageMAT.

      CANTUS

  10. 2006
    1. Website revised

      The website was revised and the database expanded with the addition of the Reading the Roman de la rose project from 2006-2012. 

      Reading the Roman de la rose in text and image

  11. 2005
    1. Second MARGOT conference

      An international MARGOT Colloquium at Waterloo in May 2005 celebrated the past research of the group, and explored possibilities for future new directions. The colloquium marked both the retirement of Hannah Fournier, an original member of MARGOT, and the arrival at Waterloo of new colleagues Christine McWebb, François Paré, and Guy Poirier, all working in the areas of medieval and Renaissance studies.

      Conference: 2005, Waterloo

  12. 2003
    1. Electronic edition of the Campsey collection of Saints' Lives and Anglo-Norman Vie de St. Clement was built.

      Work was begun on expanding the medieval electronic texts available on the MARGOT website, and on improving the search software. Delbert Russell, in collaboration with Frank Tompa (Computer Science, University of Waterloo) built an electronic edition of the Campsey collection of Saints’ Lives, British Library MS Additional 70513, as well as of the Anglo-Norman Vie de St. Clement. Dr. Russell’s participation in the team of researchers who developed the electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary gave him the necessary expertise to create these electronic editions, and Dr. Tompa, one of the original creators of the OED software, advised on database structure and was responsible for the redesign of search tools for web-based electronic texts.

      The electronic Campsey project

      New OED software

  13. 1993
    1. First conference

      The first colloquium Femmes et textes sous l’Ancien Régime, held at Waterloo in 1993, demonstrated well one of the major research interests of the group.

      Conference: 1993, Waterloo

    2. First MARGOT website

      In response to the opportunities offered by the expansion of the Internet and the widespread use of web browsers, the first MARGOT website was created for electronic versions of texts by early women writers. The interest developed during the first MARGOT Femmes et textes colloquium in 1993 led to a continuing series on early women writers, and subsequent colloquia were held at St. Louis, USA (1995), Montréal, Canada (1997), Charlottesville, USA (1999), Rennes, France (2002), and Rouen, France (2005). 

      French women writers from the ancien régime

  14. 1989
    1. Creation of MARGOT

      The researchers of MARGOT (Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, Université de Montréal, Hannah Fournier, Emeritus, University of Waterloo, Delbert Russell, University of Waterloo) built a textual database of Latin and early French texts, using software developed at Waterloo for the computerization of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Using these computer tools, and with the help of graduate students the group published editions of medieval texts and early modern works by women writers.

      Oxford English Dictionary (OED)


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