Guides: Global Medieval Studies: Find Primary Sources

Published Primary Sources

A lot of primary sources are published in books and you can use library catalogs like HoyaSearch to locate them.

This link will take you to a list of published primary sources about the medieval period.>

The Library of Congress tags every book that is published in the US with subject headings. There are several subject headings that are used for primary source materials, such as

Sources
Description and travel
Personal narratives
Correspondence

A more complete explanation is listed here. When you do a search in HoyaSearch (or another library catalog like WorldCat), try using one of these terms as a SUBJECT search and then adding in a keyword. Your keywords might have to be pretty broad, as you are only searching a very small amount of information about the books - NOT the full text of them.

If you find a book that is relevant for your topic, make sure you look at the subject headings by clicking on the full record tab in HoyaSearch. This will give you other good search terms. The Library of Congress often uses strange vocabulary, and you'll get better results if you can use it effectively.

Primary Source Databases

Acta Sanctorum This link opens in a new window
Electronic version of the complete printed text of Acta Sanctorum, from the edition published in sixty-eight volumes by the Société des Bollandistes in Antwerp and Brussels. It is a collection of documents examining the lives of saints, organised according to each saint's feast day, and runs from the two January volumes published in 1643 to the Propylaeum to December published in 1940.

The Acta Sanctorum Database contains the entire Acta Sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indices. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina reference numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.
Angelica: Art and Culture This link opens in a new window
More than 90,000 textual descriptions and 8,000 digital images of thousands of art slides in the collection of the department of Art, Music and Theater. Database will eventually include other humanities-based images found in the University community (e.g., archaeology slides in the Classics department collection). The database is for the exclusive educational use only of faculty and students at Georgetown University. A NetID is required for access. Materials, text and image are copyrighted.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive digital library containing images of artworks, photographs, architecture, decorative arts, rare books, and items from popular culture. Images may be viewed live in ARTstor or offline in ARTstor's downloadable image viewer.
ATLA Historical Monographs Collection: Series 1 This link opens in a new window
E-books on religion curated by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), covering the 13th century through 1893.
Bloomsbury Medieval Studies This link opens in a new window
Bloomsbury Medieval Studies is an interdisciplinary digital resource with a global perspective which opens up the medieval world for students and scholars. It brings together high-quality secondary content with visual primary sources, a brand new reference work and material culture images into one cross-searchable platform, to support this rich field of study.

British History Online
A "digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles."
Catalogue of Digitzed Medieval Manuscripts
Search or browse for digitized medieval manuscripts from archives and libraries worldwide.
Digital Index of Middle English Verse (DIMEV)
The DIMEV provides transcriptions of the first two and last two lines of each witness of each Middle English verse text (i.e., for all witnesses for which this data has thus far been collected).

Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts This link opens in a new window
Full-text collection of theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents and polemical treatises written by more than 300 Protestant authors.
Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation This link opens in a new window
Full-text collection of 16th- and 17th-century Catholic papal and synodal decrees, catechisms and inquisitorial manuals, biblical commentaries, theological treatises and systems, liturgical writings, saints' lives and devotional works.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
Features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions.

Epistolae
Epistolae is a collection of letters to and from women dating from the 4th to the 13th century AD. These letters from the Middle Ages, written in Latin, are presented with English translations and are organized by the women participating. Biographical sketches of the women and descriptions of the subject matter or the historic context of the letter is included where available.
EuroDocs: History of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated.

Europeana This link opens in a new window
Online access to paintings, music, films and books from Europe's galleries, libraries, archives and museums.
Gallica This link opens in a new window
Digital library of French and francophone culture maintained by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Contains electronic texts, images, maps, animation, and sound files of French and other publications in history, literature, science, philosophy, law, economics, and political science. Almost all "classic" works of French literature are represented.

Global Medieval Sourcebook
An open-access, digital repository of Medieval texts from Stanford University. It offers a flexible online display for the parallel viewing of medieval texts in their original language, in new English translations, and in their digitized manuscript form.
Global Middle Ages
An international collaborative effort to visualize the world, c. 500 to 1500 CE, the stories of lives, objects, and actions in terms of dynamic relationship and change across time. From the University of Texas at Austin.
Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Full-text primary sources on a variety of topics.
Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies
An extensive directory of links in medieval studies, covering graphics, texts, manuscripts, and other forms of media. Describes medieval culture in the British Isles, France, Germany, Iberia, Italy, and Scandinavia. Addresses archaeology, arts and architecture, general medieval history, Latin, manuscripts, music, philosophy and theology, social and religious history, and the sciences.

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online This link opens in a new window
Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) is an essential resource for the study of Britain and its place in the world during the medieval and early modern period (c. 1100-1800).
Medieval Family Life This link opens in a new window
Medieval Family Life contains full-color images of the original medieval manuscripts that comprise the Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor, and Armburgh family letter collections, along with full-text searchable transcripts from printed editions. Also includes family trees, chronology, a map, and a glossary.
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
Provides an extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing in fact and in fantasy. The main focus is accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China. The core of the material is a magnificent collection of medieval manuscripts from libraries across Europe and dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries.
Middle English Compendium This link opens in a new window
Provides links among three major Middle English electronic resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary (MED), a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse (based on the MED bibliographies), and other related electronic resources including a collection of more than 50 Middle English texts.
Middle English Dictionary: The print version (LAU Stacks and Cataloging PE679 .M54), now nearing completion, has been described as "the greatest achievement in medieval scholarship in America," offering a comprehensive analysis of lexicon and usage for the period 1100-1500.

HyperBibliography of Middle English: Includes all the Middle English materials cited in the MED. Titles were adopted from A Manual of the Writings in Middle English (LAU Ref PR255 .S4).

Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse: A growing collection of Middle English electronic texts eventually to include all editions of Middle English texts used in the MED and the more recent scholarly editions that may have superseded them.

Online Medieval and Classical Library
Provides online access to authoritative modern English translations of some of the most famous and studied medieval texts.
Parker Library
Digitized manuscripts spanning from the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine to sixteenth-century records relating to the English Reformation.

Past Masters This link opens in a new window
Provides scholarly complete editions of classics (or selections from classics) in philosophy, literature, political science and economics. Examples of authors include Aristotle, Machiavelli, Shelley, Mill, Hume, Nietzsche, Bronte and Adam Smith. In English translation and/or the original language.

Post-Reformation Digital Library
The Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL) is a select database that organizes the vast array of publicly available digital sources on the development of theology and philosophy during the early modern era (late 15th-18th c.).
Vatican Library: Digitized Collections

Witchcraft in Europe and America This link opens in a new window
The earliest texts in this comprehensive collection on witchcraft date from the 15th century and the latest are from the early 20th century. The majority of the material concerns the 16th to 18th centuries, the so-called "classic period." In addition to these classic texts, the collection includes anti-persecution writings, works by penologists, legal and church documents, exposés of persecutions, and philosophical writings and transcripts of trials and exorcisms. Part of Archives Unbound.

Archives & Special Collections

ArchiveGrid
A searchable collection of finding aids to primary source material held in archives, special collections, and manuscript collections around the world. Includes historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more.
GU Special Collections in European History
Overview of materials that relate to European History in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections.
GU Special Collections in the Book Arts
Overview of materials that relate to the Book Arts, including medieval manuscripts, in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections..
Booth Family Center for Special Collections

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