DNB – May 2011 update

Latest update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

First published in 2004, the Oxford DNB is now extended online every January, May, and September. The May 2011 update – the 20th since 2004 – is now available with a special focus on the history of modern Wales and Victorian genre painters.

May’s update also completes a 3-year project to provide a complete, and unique, biographical record of every English bishop from the Norman conquest to the Reformation. The complete listing will allow researchers to search across biographies to study the medieval episcopacy in new ways. To mark completion of the project its editor, Dr Henry Summerson, asks whether bishops were Born to rule?

As well as new people, ODNB updates add essays on well-known historical groups and networks, showing how people worked, or played, together. The ODNB now includes nearly 300 group essays, from the 6th century Gregorian mission to the Angry Young Men. New groups in May include the Primrose League, the Happy Valley set, and the Gang of Four; plus the Knights of the Round Table and Robin Hood’s Merrie Men.

More essays will be added in future updates, with a current list of ODNB Themes available here.

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