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.
Ongoing project to collect Latin texts written in Italy during the Middle Ages. The holdings are divided between literary (e.g. hagiography, philosophy, sermons, chronicles) and documentary (e.g. town statutes, papal bulls) works, and can be searched or browsed by period, location, author, genre, prose, or verse. Each item includes the edition from which the text was taken, and preserves original pagination.
A free digital library providing medieval Latin texts from the 7th to the 14th centuries in an alphabetical list (by author). It is part of the larger IntraText Library digital collection published by Èulogos SpA (http://www.eulogos.net), which includes, among other archives, Biblioteca Italiana and Biblioteca religiosa. Texts are harvested from other websites—not all academic–as well as print matter. Searchable across entire collection. Includes linked notes, concordances, lists, and statistics related to texts. Although BL texts are also searchable by author, title, or general period of origin, the site offers no editorial or contextual information. Published under Creative Commons.
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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.
Searchable database of the manuscripts held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the Departement des Manuscrits and the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, some with links to digitized versions of the manuscripts. Database includes full descriptions of manuscripts and bibliographical information, as well as incipit and explicit.
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Provides a searchable corpus of over 1500 digitized Irish literary and historical texts available to read or use online as HTML, XML, or SGML, and some of which may also be downloaded in .pdf format.
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A searchable digital library of Christian texts in English translation, drawn from out- of-copyright editions. Texts are readable online, or downloadable as an ePUB, .pdf, or .txt. Each text also includes a brief summary and information about the author and edition. Searchable by title, author, scriptural passages, etc.., but not by date or period.
From the creators: The purpose of the project is to collect all information relating to the books of Durham Priory, manuscript and printed work inherited, given, bought or created by the monks of the Benedictine priory of Durham, its predecessors and cells.
As of 2020, the project has made available catalog descriptions and IIIF-compliant images of over 150 of the manuscripts associated with Durham Cathedral. Currently items are not searchable but are arranged by shelfmark. The project is regularly updated as has an active blog associated with it.
Fragmentarium’s primary objective is to develop a digital library specialized for medieval manuscript fragment research. Although based on the many years of experience of e-codices — Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, the Fragmentarium Digital Library has an international orientation. First and foremost it is conceived as a social platform for libraries, scholars and students to do scholarly work on fragments. It conforms to the latest standards set by digital libraries and will set new standards, especially in the area of interoperability.
The web application contains a series of tools:
- A cataloging tool that enables libraries, collectors, researchers and students to gather and describe fragments via a CMS.
- A tool for curated and social tags, facets and keywords, allowing efficient research through comparison and cross-checking.
- A tool to link and assemble fragments offers the possibility to arrange cuttings, fragments of leaves, and individual leaves in any order.
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 *
Ongoing collection of texts (primary and secondary, in original and translation) and images of art and architecture related to religious women in medieval Europe.
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A database of the volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historia (MGH), a collection of meticulously edited primary sources for the study of the Middle Ages with an emphasis on the German lands. The database may be searched or browsed by the department, and the volumes (published 1826-2010) may be read online or downloaded as .pdfs.
A digitized version of volumes 1-217 of Migne’s Patrologia Latina, a collection of texts in Latin by church fathers, theologians, popes, councils, and many others from late antiquity through the high Middle Ages, indexed by volume. The texts, which are divided by author within each volume, may be read online or downloaded in .pdf format.
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Project Gutenberg, first begun in the 1970s, aims to provide free access to reading materials via the internet. The project currently includes over 50,000 open-access works, covering multiple subjects and representative of many time periods. Some of the works will be of interest to medievalists; editions of the Divine Comedy can be found in Italian on the site, for example, and other works of potential interest, both primary and secondary, are certainly to be found within the large collection. However, both the search and browse functions are outdated given current search engines. Even given the large number of volumes included, medieval works are more sparse than one might desire for inclusion in the MDR.
The Repertorium is a free German-language reference work for the history of the German Middle Ages from about 750-1500. It provides a large catalog of authors and works who discuss the history of the region that is today German. Entries frequently provide links to digitized manuscripts and texts on external websites when available. There are also a number of tags to sort entries, including by lists of saints and places in addition to a search function. An English version of the site can be accessed here: https://geschichtsquellen.de/start?s=en
