Guides: Medieval Studies: Websites

Medieval Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire Archives Online Catalogue
Lincs to the Past is a site that contains hundreds of thousands of records covering items held in Lincolnshire’s Historic Environment Record, Archives, Libraries, Museums and Tennyson Research Centre.
Lincoln Cathedral Library Catalogue
Lincoln Cathedral
The University of Lincoln has seconded the Special Collections Librarian to work in Exchequer Gate to support the Cathedral Librarian for two days per week. The Cathedral collections are split into three; Manuscripts, Rare Books (up to 1801) and the Modern Reference Collection. Some items have not been catalogued but material is constantly being added. For all enquiries please contact the Cathedral Librarian on librarian@lincolncathedral.com or exchequergate@lincolncathedral.com

Medieval Manuscripts Online

Searching for a manuscript image to add interest to a PowerPoint slide or class assignment? Want extra practice in paleography? Want to know what books were available in a particular medieval library or how many copies of a medieval text survive into the present day? All of these questions and many more can be answered by making use of freely available scans of medieval manuscripts (digitised manuscripts). Below is a selection of links to the digitized manuscripts of major libraries as well as tools which enable you to search many collections at once, or locate manuscript collections in specific places.

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Search the digitised collections of the Vatican Library (over 18,000 manuscripts).
British Library Digitised Manuscripts
This page offers access to a wide range of digitised British Library manuscripts and archives.
Digital Bodleian
This page offers access to the digitised collections of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Digitised Medieval Manuscripts
This amazing map allows to you to browse digitised medieval manuscripts around the world. It can be searched by library, city or country.
Gallica
This offers access to the digitised collections of the National Library of France (Bibliotheque Nationale de France) and its partner libraries.
IIIF Collections: Manuscripts and Rare Books
This website provides a platform for searching across collections of digitised medieval manuscripts which are IIIF compliant (IIIF is an international standard, and compliance with it allows viewers of to see standardised, high quality images in the same formats wherever they go on the internet)
Manuscripts Online Written Culture 1000 to 1500
Manuscripts Online enables you to search a diverse body of online primary resources relating to written and early printed culture in Britain during the period 1000 to 1500. The resources include literary manuscripts, historical documents and early printed books which are located on websites owned by libraries, archives, universities and publishers.
Parker Library on the Web
The Parker Library (at Corpus Cristi College, University of Cambridge). contains digitised medieval manuscripts and rare books.

Online Databases for Studying the Middle Ages

The following are freely available online, meaning that you can access these without a university email address and password.

Black Central Europe
A collection of primary sources on the lives of Black people in central Europe, from the Middle Ages to the present day
Epistolae: Medieval Women's Letters
Epistolae is a collection of letters to and from women dating from the 4th to the 13th century AD, in English translation. Biographical sketches of the women and descriptions of the subject matter or the historic context of the letter is included where available.
Fordham Medieval Digital Projects
Projects include the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, a collection of translated, out of copyright medieval texts, bibliographies, explorations of medieval French, and mapping projects.
The Index of Medieval Art
The database includes images and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century. Although the Index of Medieval Art was formerly known as the Index of Christian Art, it now includes secular subjects as well as a growing number of subjects from medieval Jewish and Islamic cultures.
LIBRO: The Library of Iberian Resources Online
This database aims to provide books, texts, and translated sources for studying the Iberian peninsula between the fifth and seventeenth centuries.
Manar Al-Athar: Images for the Study of the Middle East
This provides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art, cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period.
Medieval Digital Resources
A database of databases for studying the Middle Ages, useful if you are looking for resources to support work on medieval art or history.
Robbins Library Digital Projects
Projects include the Camelot Project (an important resource for studying King Arthur), the Crusades Project (a look at the Crusades in medieval English literature), the Robin Hood project (useful for studying the medieval outlaw tradition), and Visualizing Chaucer (a bibliography and database of images of his work).
Roman Inscriptions of Britain
This website hosts Volume One of The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, R.G. Collingwood's and R.P. Wright's magisterial edition of 2,401 monumental inscriptions from Britain found prior to 1955. It also incorporates all Addenda and Corrigenda published in the 1995 reprint of RIB (edited by R.S.O. Tomlin) and the annual survey of inscriptions published in Britannia since.

Even More Online Resources

The Middle Ages and the Modern Day

Students and enthusiasts of the Middle Ages have collaboratively and individually created a number of popular blogs and websites, which may be helpful in your studies of medievalism or the medieval and the modern day.

The Public Medievalist
Written by medieval scholars for a broad readership, the online magazine The Public Medievalist aims to bring medieval history and medievalism to the general public.
Medievalists.net
In their own words, 'Medievalists.net offers readers the chance to learn and experience what is new in history by providing comprehensive coverage of news, books, articles, games, movies, pop culture and more.'

Visiting Other Libraries

SCONUL Access is a scheme which allows many university library users to use or borrow books and journals at other libraries which belong to the scheme. Click here to learn more about it or sign up.

WorldCat

WorldCat is an international library catalogue. It is useful for looking for material on particular subjects and finding out in what libraries they are held. This makes it a very useful tool when you are planning a visit to another library.

Library Hub Discover and Other Library Catalogues

Before visiting another library, it's always a good idea to check their catalog to make sure the material you want to see is available. You can generally find a library's catalog with a quick internet search. If you are planning to visit multiple external libraries or aren't quite sure where to go, merged library catalogues like Library Hub Discover and WorldCat can help you plan your research.

Library Hub Discover This link opens in a new window
Jisc Library Hub Discover exposes rare and unique research material by bringing together the catalogues of major UK and Irish libraries. In a single search you can discover the holdings of the UK’s National Libraries (including the British Library), many university libraries, and specialist research libraries.

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