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Ad Fontes

Ad Fontes is a web platform designed to train students and scholars for medieval archival work. Administered through the University of Zurich, the project requires the user to register for a free account that then allows him or her to take modules on the use of archives. Numerous modules exist, including ones on transcription, coinage, heraldry, chronology, dating, and maps. Transcription and script training focuses on several languages, including medieval Latin, German, and Scandinavian languages among others. Transcription modules include quizzes that allow a user to test their progress.

The platform is continuously updated, with new modules added every few months.

Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux (BVMM)

The BVMM is a French-language resource that serves as a clearing house for images and data on medieval manuscripts held in institutions in Europe. Institutions range from municipal libraries and religious houses up to major research and university libraries across continental Europe. Images can sometimes be from microfilm, black and white, or in full color.

British History Online

A digital library and index of primary and secondary sources and British and Irish history resources, which currently (Jan. 2016) contains material from over 1,250 printed volumes. Also provides  digitized versions of guides and calendars held at the National Archives at Kew, and historic maps, including the 19th-century Ordnance Survey. Augmented by scholarly born-digital resources like browsable datasets compiled from taxes, references to medieval market privileges, and central courts such as the Court of Common Pleas. Also includes useful subject guides to local, parliamentary, urban, and religious history with essays and bibliography. A small amount of content is restricted to subscription holders.

* National History Day Selected Resource *

Chartes originales antérieures à 1121 conservées en France

Cette base de données présente le texte, et bientôt les reproductions photographiques, de l’ensemble des chartes originales antérieures à 1121 conservées en France. (This database presents the texts, and sometimes photographic reproductions, of the corpus of original charters preserved in France predating the year 1121.)

Consistory: Testimony in the Late Medieval London Consistory Court

The Consistory Project aims to create a database and digital editions of all surviving records from the pre-1500 documents of the London Consistory Court. The court handled clerical cases on a wide variety of topics like debt, marriage, sin, and other issues. Cases were adjudicated by a clerical magistrate and the records were written in Latin. The project allows one to search by name, date, and place. Each record presents a case in both Latin and English translation with links to other records if they are present. As of 2020, the project has created records for over 125 of the 1100 extant records.

Internet Medieval History Sourcebook

The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is useful primarily as a source for short extracts, derived from public domain sources or copy-permitted translations, to be used for teaching (particularly for medieval survey courses). Also included are some complete documents, notably saints’ lives, or links to the full documents. The editor states that the early aim was to include a wide range of texts which address elite governmental, legal, religious and economic concerns. The resources now also include a large selection of texts on women’s and gender history, Islamic and Byzantine history, Jewish history, and social history. The texts, again according to the editor’s own statement, vary in quality, and do not always represent the best or most modern translation.

* National History Day Selected Resource *

People of Medieval Scotland 1093-1371

People of Medieval Scotland 1093-1371 is a research project administered by King’s College London, University of Glasgow, and University of Edinburgh. The project has created an online database of all Scottish people mentioned in the over 8600 extant documents from the period 1093CE to 1371CE, though names and documents extend into the early 15th century. The database allows a user to search by keywords, people, places, sources, or “factoids,” which are legal events committed to documents. Each entry provides a list of associated people, the type of document, dates, and other documentary evidence as well as the holding institution for the document. When available, the project includes images of the documents in an on-screen viewer.

The project also presents an interactive network map that allows a user to visualize social connections in medieval Scotland. Additionally, the project presents a map of Scotland that a user may lay over with places and events as derived from the documentary evidence.

The database and its materials are free to use. The project is ongoing with the period under consideration extended in recent updates.

Regesta Imperii

The REGESTA IMPERII (RI) records all documented and historiographically documented activities of Roman-German kings and emperors from the Carolingians to Maximilian I (about 751-1519) and the popes of the early and early Middle Ages in the form of German-speaking regesta. The website is a portal for the Commission on the regesta imperii, including links to the RI Opac (bibliographical search engine), electronic publications (work in progress editions and data collections), and the searchable RI database (chronological entries relating to imperial history from the Carolingian to the fifteenth century, based on the 80+ published volumes).

York’s Archbishops’ Registers Revealed

From the creators: York’s Archbishops Registers Revealed provides free access to over 20,000 images of Registers produced by the Archbishops of York, 1225-1650, in addition to a growing searchable index of names, subjects, places and organisations. The registers are a valuable, and in many cases, unexploited source for ecclesiastical, political, social, local and family history – covering periods of war, famine, political strife and religious reformation in the Archdiocese of York and the wider Northern Province.

The site contains over 5000 entries cataloged and organized with subject headings, indexes, and searchable contents. The project also offers IIIF capability for its images.