Many of us have been there. After long preparation and much travel, we’re sitting in an archive, library, or museum examination room, and we find something genuinely exciting…
…but it’s entirely unrelated to our work, and so it’s likely that no one but us (and whoever follows us on social media where we went bonkers about it) will ever know.
Just as Medieval Leavings publishes “editorial orphans” that have struggled to land elsewhere, its Archival Darling section provides a home for stray research discoveries and observations, particularly ones that are unlikely to be incorporated into the author’s other published writing. Think of Archival Darlings as Medieval Leavings’ version of research notes.
Ideally, Archival Darlings present a single source, collection, or archive to scholars in Medieval Studies (broadly construed) who could use it. Unlike an article, their primary goal isn’t to make an argument that advances a scholarly conversation, but to point to interesting raw material that will help others do so. As such, these notes describe the “archival darling” with enough specificity that readers see its value, and perhaps offer some initial observations about how it might be incorporated into a larger project. Archival Darlings are also quite short in length. We imagine most will be around 1,000 words, but they can be up to 4,000 words.
Follow author instructions here. We can include images or links to images on museum and archive websites.