Skip to content

Archives

Cantus Planus at University of Regensburg

Cantus Planus at the University of Regensburg presents a variety of tools and databases for the study of plainchant. The site offers a number of datafiles containing antiphons, responsories, and the texts of various liturgical books from across Europe. Likewise, the site presents databases for searching various aspects of the liturgy, including saints’ feasts or the type of liturgy used for a particular day. Likewise, the site contains search apparatus for notation as well as a number of bibliographies on chant.

The site is free to use, though it has not been recently updated.

Celtic Studies bibliography kept by Van Hamel

Welcome to the beta version of CODECS: Online Database and e-Resources for Celtic Studies. While its name and design are indeed new, this website continues the collection of digital resources, including the selgā catalogue and Tionscadal na Nod, which was formerly accommodated on the main website of the A. G. van Hamel Foundation for Celtic Studies (itself now at www.vanhamel.nl/stichting). The project is still published by the Foundation and directed by board member Dennis Groenewegen.

Chinese Text Project

The Chinese Text Project is an open-access digital library whose goal is to make available a wide variety of Chinese texts from ancient periods. Though the site focuses on ancient texts in particular, texts from the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties are well represented as well. Texts are generally taken from open-source documents published elsewhere on the internet, but there are also original transcriptions as well.

The CTP also brings together a variety of resources for the study of ancient Chinese texts, including dictionaries, bibliographies, and other resources. There is also an active discussion board where questions of transcription and translation are frequently asked. The site continues to be updated regularly.

Dumbarton Oaks

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection is the legacy of Robert and Mildred Woods Bliss to Harvard University and to the humanities. The multiple aspects of the Blisses’ gift include historic gardens and buildings, world-class collections for researchers and the public to enjoy, and generous support for fellowships and scholarly endeavors on the local, national, and international levels.

Our mission is, first, to maintain what we have been entrusted by the Blisses to preserve. Second, to support the pursuit of the humanities as a whole, with particular focus on the disciplines of Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and Garden and Landscape Studies. Third, to honor the intention of the donors by achieving the greatest mutual advantage between Harvard and Dumbarton Oaks. Fourth, to serve the larger public through the museum, garden, and Friends of Music.

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Searchable bibliography/index of articles in over 500 journals, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the middle ages published from c.1990 onwards. Excludes books by a single author (e.g., monographs). Many items include  brief annotations. Some images also indexed. Provides links to other resources on medieval women and gender (including masculinity and homosexuality).

 

Franciscan Women: History and Culture

Franciscan Women: History and Culture is a project of the Franciscan Institute and Bonaventure University to gather information on women’s Franciscan orders across the globe from the 13th century to the 18th century. The website provides a free database where users can find an extensive searchable bibliography on Franciscan women. There is also an encyclopedia of Franciscan women in addition to a list of convents across the globe with years of operation and references to secondary sources that treat the person or location. As of 2020, there are hundreds of entries available. Individual entries vary in length and contents based and can be anywhere from one sentence to several paragraphs long.

The project also has a list of helpful links for the study of women’s orders.

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.

Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project

Cloth and clothing have been integral to life for every person since civilization began.

In the Middle Ages dress was an identifier of occupation, status, gender and ethnicity; textiles ranged through opulent, symbolic, utilitarian and recycled. Cloth production and international trade constituted a major sector of the economy of medieval Britain.

Evidence for medieval textiles and clothing is sought in diverse academic disciplines: archaeology, archaeological textiles, art history, economic history, literature, languages.

The vocabulary of the various languages spoken and written in the British Isles is documented in different specialist dictionaries, yet geographical proximity and interaction through labour and trade would argue that this evidence should be categorised and analysed together.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council made an award of £765,576 within the Research Grants (Standard) Scheme to fund a 5-year Project to undertake a trans-disciplinary study with the purpose of  producing an analytical corpus of medieval dress and textiles terminology of the British Isles in the form of a searchable database, innovatively illustrated.

At its centre was the assembly and examination of textiles/clothing lexis in the early languages of Britain (Old and Middle English; Welsh, Old Irish and minor Celtic languages; Anglo-Norman/French, Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norse), investigating the genesis and subsequent development of the vocabulary.

The terms and their citations from both documentary and literary texts have been analysed in awareness of surviving textiles/dress accessories and graphic images in medieval art.

From the reviewer:

This website represents an ambitious project – “lexis” being the total stock of words in a language – in this case we are looking at words specific to the British Isles. The sections that focus on words are the best – the Dictionaries tab and the Search the Database are useful and provide data. The Gallery tab provides detailed photographs. The Research tab leads to interesting books – they are mostly dated from 2006 -2012, however.

Medieval Bestiary

This web site deals with any and all aspects of the general topic “animals in the Middle Ages”, though there is an emphasis on the manuscript tradition, particularly of the bestiaries, and mostly in western Europe. The subject is vast, so this a large site, with well over 3000 pages, and perhaps the best way to explore it is to just wander around. The various pages making up the site are extensively linked; any text appearing in this blue color is a link (except for that one!). You can also click the green arrows at the top and bottom of each page; these will take you from one section to the next, or to the next page in a series. If you get lost, click the  button on any page to return to the table of contents. If you are interested in bestiary manuscripts, start wil the section on the manuscript families, which will link you to various other pages of interest. If you want to learn about a particular animal, start with the Beasts pages. If you are looking for something in particular, try the site search. For more help in navigating the site, click the green  on any page.

Informal articles, opinionated reviews, and irreverent comments on the bestiary genre can be found in the bestiary blog, Chimaera.

 

(Please note: this resource has not been updated since 2011, including the bibliography)

Medieval Welsh Law

The project has two aims. Firstly, to present a guide to Cyfraith Hywel, medieval Welsh law, by explaining what Welsh law was, how the law worked, and suggesting further reading by listing subject-specific academic publications for several fields within this broad topic.

The second aim is to look at the law manuscripts, the starting point for working on Cyfraith Hywel. A short description of each manuscript is presented, along with a detailed list of contents for the individual manuscripts. It will be possible for anyone who is keen to learn more about the laws to turn to these tables to see exactly what is in the manuscripts, and also to see where else those sections may occur.

It is possible to use the explanatory sections together with the detailed work on the manuscripts to offer a fuller picture of what the texts of Cyfraith Hywel contain.

Old English Newsletter Bibliography Database

Compiled by Roy Liuzza at the University of Tennessee, the OEN Bibliography Database is a searchable catalog of the annual Old English Newsletter bibliography, published annually from 1973 to 2009. Once users have registered for a free account, they can search the newsletters’ over 23,000 entries for topics related to the study of Old English. Each entry includes publication information for articles, books, and digital projects. Users may also search by topic, date, or subject. The database is no longer updated, but is a useful resource for scholars and students of early English history, literature, and cultures.

Oxford Cantigas de Santa Maria Database

The Oxford Cantigas de Santa Maria project is a platform containing numerous resources for the study of the 13th-century poems and their musical notation. The 429 poems of the Cantigas are each given an entry and within each entry one can find a synopsis of the poem, description of the miniature, a list of associated miracles, and a bibliography for that poem. Sometimes the poems will have linked recordings of their performance. The project also provides a fully searchable database of the qualities of the Cantigas so that one may search by a number of features, like the miracles, narrative, keywords, or manuscript. Likewise, the website presents an extensive bibliography of work on the poems. The project does not have the rights to reproduce the images of the manuscripts but can provide information on how to access and use them.

PhiloBiblon

PhiloBiblon is a free internet-based bio-bibliographical database of texts written in the various Romance vernaculars of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. It includes the primary sources of those texts, both manuscript and printed, the individuals involved with the production and transmission of those sources and texts, and the libraries holding them, along with relevant secondary references and authority files for persons, places, and institutions.

Notes from reviewer:

PhiloBiblon combines a search of four online bibliographies of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. As noted on the site, “There has been little concerted attempt to coordinate data among the four teams. Discrepancies will be found, for example, in the titles of texts originally written in Latin and in the names of individuals. In the case of translations from one Iberian language into another, however, the team describing the translated text tends to defer to the expertise of the team dealing with the original. There has been no systematic attempt to copy all of the information from the authority files of one bibliography into those of another.” This may make the resource confusing for inexperienced users.

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

Syri.ac

This site aims to be a comprehensive annotated bibliography of open-access resources related to the study of Syriac. The primary goal of Syri.ac is to make research on Syriac literature, history, and culture as painless and direct as possible. The annotated bibliographies can be accessed through the list of authors and themes at the top right of the page (or through a dropdown menu on mobile devices). Each page offers direct links to editions and translations of the texts referenced. Our intention is to collate in one place a world-class scholarly library that can be accessed completely through the web.

Other tools for Syriac research are also available through the menu at the top of the page. The most significant is our database of Syriac manuscripts available in digitized form. The database is searchable and offers direct links to manuscripts, even specific folios of manuscripts, so that students and scholars can quickly consult high-quality images of physical Syriac texts online.