Digital Index of Middle English Verse

The DIMEV is An Open-Access, Digital Edition of the Index of Middle English Verse, based on the Index of Middle English Verse (1943) and its Supplement (1965).

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). This enables scholars to make linguistic analyses of the witnesses to study transmission of texts and to study language of localized texts; it will also enable scholars to make identifications of newly discovered fragments of texts whose beginnings have been lost, by matching end lines.

The DIMEV brings together in highly-structured, interconnected and approachable form the information scholars need regarding subject matter, authorship, dates, manuscript transmission, and poetic form of all surviving Middle English verse from c. 1200 to c. 1550, including that found in manuscripts, incunabula, inscriptions, wall paintings, monuments, etc. This will enable researchers to follow new lines of research in this field, for instance, by studying the popularity of certain subjects at different periods (theology, women, nature, Englishness, material culture and so on), or the use of various rhyme and metrical schemes at different periods or in certain areas of the country; or by studying the origin and transmission of texts (the DIMEV records all manuscript attributions and titles of texts, and provides information about dates, and places where known of all manuscript copies).