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SfarData: The Codicological Data-Base of the Hebrew Palaeography Project

The goal of the project was to locate all the medieval codices written in the Hebrew script, which contained explicit production dates or at least scribe names; to study and document all their visual and measurable material features and scribal practices in situ, i.e. in the libraries in which they were kept; and classify these features and practices in order to expose a historical typology of the hand-produced Hebrew book and provide users of Hebrew manuscripts with a tool for identifying the production region and assessing the period of the studied manuscripts. Indeed, since the initiation of the project, almost all the dated manuscripts that were located have been studied and documented in some two hundred and fifty libraries and private collections.

Biblehub

Bible Hub Online Parallel Bible, search and study tools including parallel texts, cross references, Treasury of Scripture, and commentaries. This site provides quick access to topical studies, interlinears, sermons, Strong’s and many more resources.

* National History Day Selected Resource *

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.

Biblissima

Bibliothèque virtuelle des bibliothèques, ce portail vous invite à découvrir l’histoire d’une partie des textes et livres qui ont été écrits, traduits, enluminés, collectionnés ou inventoriés depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle.

A virtual library of libraries, this portal invites you to discover the history of a portion of the texts and books  that were written, translated, illuminated, collected or catalogued from Antiquity to the eighteenth century.

Cambridge Genizah Digital Collection

The Cambridge Genizah collection is one of the largest groups of medieval Jewish manuscript fragments in the world. Famously, Cambridge is the repository for most of the materials of the Cairo Genizah, which were brought there with the Jewish community’s permission in the early 20th century. Roughly 193,000 items from the Genizah are housed in the library today. The digital collections contain over 20,000 digitized and fully searchable items with downloadable metadata and a variety of image sizes in IIIF format. Further, Cambridge has encouraged community-driven metadata and allowed users to tag fragments with keywords, which has expanded search opportunities.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL)

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.

 

CORSAIR Online Collection Catalog (The Morgan Library & Museum)

Named after Pierpont Morgan’s yacht, CORSAIR is a single database providing unified access to over 250,000 records for medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, rare and reference books, literary and historical manuscripts, music scores, ancient seals and tablets, drawings, prints, and other art objects. Records continue to be added for the balance of the collection as well as for new acquisitions.

The depth of detail is unusual for an online catalog. Many records include summaries of the content of individual letters, lengthy notes about provenance, and detailed descriptions of bindings. Specialized indexes enable researchers to find all of the Morgan’s holdings associated with a given name, date, or place. For example, with a single search a scholar interested in Dickens can find records for manuscripts and letters in the author’s hand, early printed editions of his novels, original illustrations, photographs, and personal possessions such as Dickens’ ink pot and cigar case.

CORSAIR also serves as the gateway to one of the largest repositories of medieval images on the Internet, providing access to more than 57,000 digitized images from the Morgan’s collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. Users may page through every illustrated leaf within a manuscript, or search for individual images by place or date of creation, artist’s name, illustration type, and subject. The images and descriptions may be accessed directly through CORSAIR, or by visiting Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.

Enluminures

La base Enluminures propose la consultation gratuite de plus de 120 000 images, sous forme de vignette et de plein écran, reproductions numériques des enluminures et éléments de décor de plus de 5 000 manuscrits médiévaux conservés dans une centaine de bibliothèques municipales françaises.

The Enluminures database offers free consultation of more than 120,000 images, in the form of a thumbnail and full-screen, digital reproductions of illuminations and decorative elements of more than 5,000 medieval manuscripts preserved in some 100 French municipal libraries.

Footprints: Jewish Books through Time and Place

The Footprints projects is a growing database of records that aim to track the circulation of printed “Jewish books” across time and space. Though the great majority of records come from the early modern period and beyond, there are currently over 200 entries from the invention of the printing press to the end of the 16th century.

The database tracks interactions with printed books through what it calls “footprints,” which is the project’s terminology for users’ interactions with books through marginalia, ownership marks, and numerous other qualities. The project features advanced search functionality that allows a user to search by time, place, and various textual and physical properties of the printed books. There is also visualization capability to show the path of books and holdings in various repositories around the world.

Additionally, an active community of users exists on the site as well as a blog that is updated regularly.

Fragmentarium: Digital Research Laboratory for Medieval Manuscript Fragments

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.

Global Medieval Sourcebook

“The Global Medieval Sourcebook (GMS) is an open access teaching and research tool. It offers a flexible online display for the parallel viewing of medieval texts in their original language and in new English translations, complemented by new introductory materials.

The GMS spans one thousand years (600-1600) of literary production around the world. It contains short texts of broad interdisciplinary interest in a variety of genres, almost all of which have not previously been translated into English.”

Hebrew Fragments in Austria

A joint venture between the Austrian National Library, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute for Jewish History in Austria, the Hebrew Fragments in Austria project provides images of Hebrew language fragments in Austrian manuscripts. The website functions in both English and German. There are over 500 images of fragments from over twenty repositories present in the database currently. Many of the fragments in the collection are contained in the bindings of other manuscripts and early printed books. Images are presented in JPG format and include catalog information. The projects also presents a list of the fragments arranged by text and manuscript.

The website for the project also includes a bibliography on the study of fragments generally and the study of fragments in Germanic countries specifically. Likewise, the website also presents a map of institutions in Austria holding fragments.

Les Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (ARLIMA) 

Les Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (ARLIMA) ont été fondées à l’intention des étudiants et chercheurs spécialistes du Moyen Âge, pour qui la constitution d’une bibliographie sur un auteur ou un texte est devenue une tâche de plus en plus ardue, en raison de la multiplication non seulement des publications mais également des outils bibliographiques imprimés et électroniques à leur disposition.

The Archive of Literature of the Middle Ages (ARLIMA) was founded for the students and researchers of the Middle Ages, for whom the compilation of a bibliography on an author or a text has become an increasingly difficult task, because of the proliferation not only of the publications but also the printed and electronic bibliographic tools at their disposal.

Mandragore

Les collections de la Bibliothèque nationale de France abritent plusieurs dizaines de milliers de manuscrits dont le décor constitue l’un des plus riches musées de peinture au monde. Par leur grande variété et leur intérêt iconographique, ces images composent aussi une véritable encyclopédie visuelle de leur temps. En accroissement continu, Mandragore compte aujourd’hui plus de 170.000 notices analysant des œuvres conservées au Département des manuscrits et à la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, et dont les plus anciennes remontent à l’Égypte pharaonique et les plus récentes à l’époque contemporaine. Leur indexation repose sur un vocabulaire de plus de 18.000 descripteurs.

The collections of the National Library of France house tens of thousands of manuscripts whose decoration comprises one of the richest painting collections in the world. Through their wide variety and iconographic interest, these images also make up a veritable visual encyclopedia of their time. Growing continuously, Mandragore now has over 170,000 records analyzing works held in the Department of Manuscripts and the Library of Arsenal, the oldest of which date back to Pharaonic Egypt and the most recent from modern times . Their indexing is based on a controlled vocabulary of more than 18,000 descriptors.

Medium

A survey of microfilms and other images of medieval manuscripts kept at the Institute de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes. Many of these reproductions are now available online, and accessible via the database. 

Mittelalterliche Handschriften in Österreich / Medieval Manuscripts in Austria

Der Relaunch von manuscripta.at 2014 bietet neue Daten und Funktionalitäten, darunter:

  • einen Viewer für Digitalisate (Handschriften, ungedruckte Verzeichnisse und Materialien, Printpublikationen). Optional können die Digitalisate auch im DFG-Viewer betrachtet werden. Auf dislozierte Digitalisate wird verlinkt.
  • die direkte Verknüpfung der Handschrifteneinträge mit der “Bibliographie zu österreichischen Handschriften” (über den Link “Literatur zur Handschrift” oder “Weitere Literatur zur Handschrift”). Der direkte Zugang zur Bibliographie erfolgt über das Menü links (“Bibliographie”). Der Menüpunkt “Kataloge” erstellt eine gesonderte Liste der Handschriftenkataloge, geordnet nach Bibliotheksorten.
  • verbesserte Suchfunktionen, etwa die Schnellsuche nach einer bestimmten Handschrift über Ort/Bibliothek und Signatur (Teil von Signatur).

manuscripta.at soll nach und nach zum zentralen Nachweis- und Rechercheinstrument für mittelalterliche Handschriften in Österreich ausgebaut werden.

The relaunch of manuscripta.at in 2014 offers new data and functionality, including:

  • a viewer for digital images (manuscripts, unpublished directories and materials, print publications).
  • the direct linking of manuscript entries to the “Bibliography on Austrian Manuscripts” (via the link “Literatur zur Handschrift” or “Weitere Literatur zur Handschrift”). Direct access to the bibliography is via the menu on the left (“Bibliography”). The menu item “Catalogs” creates a separate list of manuscript catalogs, sorted by library type.
  • improved search functions, such as the quick search for a specific manuscripts by location / library and signature (part of signature).

manuscripta.at will continue to be developed into the central evidence- and research-tool for medieval manuscripts in Austria.

Oxford Genizah Collection

The Oxford Genizah Collection contains some 4,000 fragments from the Cairo Genizah that were deposited in the Bodleian Library. The fragments cover a broad time period, from the 9th century to the 19th century. The online catalog is based on Neubauer and Cowley’s 1906 catalog and Cowley’s later 1926 catalog. The database allows users to browse the fragments or perform advanced searches based on keyword or various qualities of the fragments, like period or text. Some entries are digitized; however, most have only catalog descriptions of the fragments.

RELMIN : Le statut légal des minorités religieuses dans l’espace euro-méditerranéen (Vème –XVème siècles)

RELMIN recueille, étudie et publie des textes juridiques définissant le statut des minorités religieuses dans l’Europe médiévale. Riche et varié, le corpus couvre dix siècles et s’étend sur une large zone géographique ; écrits en latin, arabe, grec, hébreu et araméen (ainsi qu’en espagnol, portugais, et en d’autres langues vernaculaires européennes), ces textes sont actuellement dispersés dans les bibliothèques et les dépôts d’archives de toute l’Europe. Ils sont maintenant recueillis dans la base de données RELMIN dans leur langue originale et accompagnés de traductions, ainsi que de commentaires. Ces textes sont ainsi mis à disposition de la communauté scientifique, des étudiants et des citoyens partout dans le monde, librement et de manière pérenne.

RELMIN collects, studies and publishes legal texts defining the status of religious minorities in medieval Europe. Rich and varied, the corpus covers ten centuries and extends over a wide geographical area; Written in Latin, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic (as well as Spanish, Portuguese, and other European vernacular languages), these texts are currently scattered in libraries and archives throughout Europe. They are now collected in the RELMIN database in their original language and accompanied by translations and comments. These texts are thus made available to the scientific community, students and citizens around the world, freely and permanently.

Repertorium Geschichtsquellen des deutschen Mittelalters

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

Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts

The SDBM continuously aggregates and updates observations of pre-modern manuscripts drawn from over 13,000 auction and sales catalogs, inventories, catalogs from institutional and private collections, and other sources that document sales and locations of these books from around the world.  It may be searched or browsed by author, title, seller, provenance, date, and others, and the datasets may also be downloaded in .xlsx or .csv format. Members of our user community are invited to log in and help us to build, maintain, and improve this resource.

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