Archives

Lexicon Musicum Latinum

A searchable online dictionary of medieval musical terms in Latin based upon the Lexicon Musicum Latinum series published under the auspices of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaft

Machaut Resources

Provides links to images of over 50 manuscripts containing the work of the poet and composer Guillaume Machaut (d. 1377).

Measuring Polyphony is an ongoing project by researchers at Brandeis University and McGill University to digitally transcribe and notate polyphonic musical texts from manuscripts of the 13th and 14th centuries. As of 2020, the project presents around fifty musical pieces and has plans for growth. Currently, most of the transcribed musical texts are in Latin or French. Each entry presents musical texts in medieval mensural and modern notations. For some entries, the project presents manuscript images in IIIF format to compare against the marked-up scores. Pieces also include audio recordings of their performance in addition to downloadable data for each piece in MEI and PDF format.

Measuring Polyphony is committed to open-source data and has made the encoding process clear. The project also makes available all of its data in XML and MEI format and also provides access to its software apparatus on GitHub.

MESA Medieval Electronic Scholarly Alliance

A community of scholars, projects, institutions, and organizations that provides a searchable database of digital resources for medieval studies including texts, manuscript facsimiles, and many others, and also allows scholars to upload and publish their own work.

Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae

Provides an index of volumes published in University of Copenhagen’s Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae series, dedicated to scholarship about Byzantine chant. Also includes extensive bibliography, an inventory of the microfilms and photos of manuscripts housed at the University for the study of Byzantine chant, and the standard abridged version of the Sticherarion (Byzantine notated chant book) downloadable in .pdf format.

Online Medieval Sources Bibliography

Searchable annotated bibliography of over 5000 modern print and online editions of medieval primary sources, intended for a broad audience including high school and college level instructors as well as more advanced scholars or enthusiasts.

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.

REFRAIN

A searchable database of medieval refrains, or fragments of music or text that circulated between songs of various types during the thirteenth century.

Restoring Lost Songs: Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy

Restoring Lost Songs is a Cambridge University project to reconstruct the music accompanying Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. Though it is understood that early medieval composers set music to Boethius’ lyrics, it remains unclear what the melody of those performance sounded like due to the notation systems used. The project seeks to offer possible restorations of the music in text and performance. On the platform, one may find a list of medieval manuscripts containing notated versions of the Consolation in addition to links to repositories and sometimes images of the manuscript. Additionally, a user may search by song to find in which manuscripts it appears.

The project has also published scores in modern notation of possible restorations of some of the lyrics. Additionally, the project offers numerous essays on topics from instruments and notation, to performance practices. Finally, the platform offers numerous video and audio recordings of their restorations in performance in addition to teaching materials. The site is occasionally updated as of 2020.

Richard L. Crocker, A Gregorian Archive

On this website you can hear, chant by chant, the whole early repertory of Gregorian chant, the standard repertory of nearly six hundred chants for the Propers of the Roman Mass. This is a study edition for enjoying and comparing recorded solo performances by Richard Crocker and three or four friends, of Gregorian chant sung according to current tradition updated with the results of current research on the earliest medieval notation.

European Library

Provides access to the contents of 48 European national libraries as well as a number of research libraries such as Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, including catalog entries and some full-text content. The European Library also provides the basis for the Europeana portal, which provides links to digitized books, including many early printed books.

Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies

A collection of digital resources for medieval studies organized by category, including Art, Armor, Crusades, Gender, Manuscripts, and many others. The site may be browsed by category or searched, and each link is accompanied by a brief description of its contents.

* National History Day Selected Resource *

Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum

The Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum is a database of digitized medieval Latin texts on the topic of music, broadly imagined. Housed at the University of Indiana, the project transcribes and digitizes texts on all topics related to medieval music from the 5th to 17th centuries and provides a database to house them. A user may search by title, author, topic, century, and numerous other qualities. Each text entry offers a brief synopsis and bibliography, including manuscripts in which the text appears.

The TML clearly outlines their transcription policies and provides all their material for free via a Creative Commons license.

Usuarium

A digital catalog of over 800 manuscripts and printed books containing western liturgical texts from the Middle Ages and the early modern period, initiated, designed, and edited by the Research Group of Liturgical History (ELTE University of Budapest, Hungary).