Medieval Studies Subject Guide
Medieval Studies Electronic Resources
44 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users 
- Open Access
Electronic Bibliographies
These are online resources for finding articles (International Medieval Bibliography) and books and articles (ITER) in various areas of medieval studies. They should be used along with printed bibliographical sources listed elsewhere in this guide.
International Medieval Bibliography
An index to articles in journals and other publications about Europe, the Middle East and North Africa within the dates 400-1500 AD. Coverage: 1967-present. To search, click Enter Databases, then click on the link to the database.
Print: Z 6203 .I62x (Ref) 1967-2004, This subscription is limited to three simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
Iter - Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
A non-profit research project enables more access to published materials about the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700) through online bibliographic databases. Includes books and articles.
The Library of Latin Texts includes classical texts from the Bibliotheca scriptorum Romanorum Teubneriana, patristic and medieval texts from the Corpus Christianorum as well as the Vulgate, the Ecumenical Councils and Gratian's Decretum. Click Enter Databases, then click on the link to Library of Latin Texts. Part of the Brepolis Latin package.
Note: the search features and help for this source are in English or German. It combines two important resources: one of the largest databases for European History from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (16th century). Actually you can find more than 650.000 entries in the RI-Opac: titles of all relevant disciplines (archaeology, history, art, literature, music, philosophy, languages, theology etc.); titles from the year 1500 up to today; articles from more than 13,000 periodicals; articles from more than 20.000 anthologies (proceedings, Festschriften, etc.). The second resource is the REGESTA IMPERII. The REGESTA IMPERII are one of the great source works of German and European History. They produce an inventory of all documentary and historiographical sources of the Romano-German kingship from the Carolingians to Maximilian I. (751-1519), as well as of the Popes of the Early and High Middle Ages.
Electronic Texts
Bodies of medieval texts, available either online or on CD-Rom. These are either the full texts edited for electronic use, as with the PLD or electronic Acta Sanctorum, or indices of the full texts, as with the CLCLT-4.
Contains the complete texts, which were published between 1656 and 1940, of all the lives of the ancient, medieval and modern saints. Serves as an electronic index for 68 volumes of saints' lives. This subscription is limited to four simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
A database produced by the American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (University of Chicago) of nearly 2000 texts ranging from classic French literature to nonfiction and technical writing. Includes medieval and Renaissance as well as 18th, 19th, and 20th century works in many genres, such as fiction, poetry, theater, journalism, essays, correspondence and treatises. Subjects include literary criticism, biology, history, economics, and philosophy.
Librarian's Comment: Medievalists will also find the reference tools, which include an online version of the Vulgate Bible, helpful.
Digitale Bibliothek Deutscher Klassiker
An electronic edition of the Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker which contains the highpoints of German literature, as well as editions of works by writers and philosophers such as Herder, Kleist, Kant, and Fichte. Various historical, philosophical theological, political and art history texts are included among the digitized works. The overall range is 800 to 1914.
Electronic Monumenta Germaniae Historica
(Rare Book Room, CD-ROM DD 1)
Turnhout: Brepols, 1996-. A selection of texts from all five divisions of the Monumenta Germaniac Historica (Scriptores Leges, Diplomata, Epistolae, and Antiquitates).
Librarian's Comment: It is planned to expand the content of the CD-ROM annually so that the entire body of MGH editions will be available in this format within 10 to 15 years.)--Foreward in user's manual. User's manual by Rudolf Schieffer.
Archive of Celtic-latin Literature: Acll-1 : Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources
(Rare Book Room, CD, CD-ROM PA 1) 1st (prelim.) CD-ROM ed. Turnhout : Brepols, 1994.
The first of three cumulative compilations of the Latin works of Celtic authors from 400 to 1200 based on previously edited texts and a new series of editions undertaken for the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary project.
Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts Version 4 [CLCLT-4]
(Rare Book Room, CD-ROM BR 1)
This database contains virtually the entirety of the volumes published in the Corpus Christianorum both the Series Latina and the Continuatio Mediaeualis, the opera omnia of major authors such as Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, as well as several works not yet available in the Corpus Christianorum but included in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum of Vienna, the Patrologia Latina, or other collections.
The electronic version of of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855, and the indexes published between 1862 and 1865.
Librarian's Comment: The Patrologia Latina Database contains 221 volumes and represents a complete electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865). Migne's Patrologia Latina was originally printed in 217 volumes from 1844 to 1855. There were two series: the series prima, volumes 1-73, (Tertullian to Gregory the Great), 1844 -1849; and the series secunda volumes 74-217, (Gregory the Great to Pope Innocent 3rd), 1849-1855. All 221 volumes of the Patrologia Latina, along with prefaces and notes, in electonic form accessible via the World wide Web.
Manuscript and Rare Book Catalogs
Currently, these are catalogs of books and manuscripts and exhibitions of books and manuscripts on CD-ROM. Useful as finding aids, these resources may also contain images from manuscripts.
Catalogi codicum Latinorum Monacensium [Halmii et aliorum]
(Rare Books Room, CD-ROM Z 27)
An electronic version of the 19th century manuscript catalogs of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. Covers only Latin manuscripts with the clm shelfmark.
English Short Title Catalogue, 1473-1800 on CD-Rom
(Rare Books Room, CD-ROM Z 21)
London: British Library, 2003. Includes the complete Pollard and Redgrave and Wing short title catalogues of books printed in England and English books published elsewhere, during the first period of English printing along with the current version of the 18th Century Short Title Catalogue. Also useful as the catalogue for works contained in the full-text database Early English Books Online.
Montecassino Virgilio e il Chiostro.
(Rare Books Room, CD-ROM PA 2)
By Bimillennio di Cristo. [Roma:] : Rose, [1996]. A CD-ROM catalog of manuscripts and books from Montecassino based on an exhibition held Abbazia di Montecassino, July 8-Dec. 8, 1996.
Vedere i classici: The Illustrated Classics
(Rare Book Room, CD-ROM ND 2) A second illustrated catalog of manuscript images from the Vatican Library's immense store of manuscripts of the Greek and Latin classics.
CD-Rom Manuscript Facsimiles
Photographic reproductions of manuscripts on CD-Rom. These resources may also have tools which allow for some manipulation of the images.
The Book of Kells. Trinity College Library Dublin.
(Rare Books Room, CD-ROM BS 1 2000) Includes images of the entire contents of the manuscript, with detailed reproductions of fourteen of the most significant illustrated pages. The history of the manuscript is narrated, and decorative and symbolic themes are clearly explained.
The Cathach of Colum Cille: an introduction by Michael Herity and Aidan Breen
(Rare Books Room BX2033 .H47x 2002 CD-Rom).
A CD-Rom facsimile of Royal Irish Academy Library, Manuscript 12 R 33, the Cathach of St. Columba, a sixth-century psalter.
Old English and Middle English Resources
A variety of online and CD-Rom based resources. These include the Old English Dictionary Corpus, and CD versions of Beowulf, Chaucer and Piers Plowman.
Chaucer Life and Times
(Rare Book Room, CD-ROM PR 2)
Includes the complete works of Chaucer with modern translations and glossary, critical commentary, historical information, extensive graphics, and audio clips in Middle English. Ed. by Cristina Ashby, Geoff Couldrey, and Susan Dickson.
Dictionary of Old English Corpus
This database gathers 3037 individual texts comprising a complete record of Old English. Arranged as a contextual dictionary, words or word fragment searches lead to hits everywhere these appear in an OE text.
This subscription is limited to one simultaneous user. Please logout when finished.
Librarian's Comment: This is a complete record of surviving Old English except for some variant manuscripts of individual texts. A catalog of the texts included in this corpus is available in Angus Cameron's "A List of Old English Texts, " in A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, ed. R. Frank and A. Cameron (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), pp. 25-306. The full bibliographic information of each text is included with the text which is taken from the Healey-Venezky List of Texts.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Contains digital images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War. The collection is indexed at the British Library website. The index (in print) and images (on microfilm) are also available in Waldo Library.
Librarian's Comment: This resources contains early editions of texts by Aelfric, Chaucer and others as well as a number of 16th and 17th-century histories of interest to medievalists.
Electronic Beowulf Ed. Kevin Kiernan
(Rare Books Room, CD-ROM PR 3)
Restored and enhanced color facsimiles of British Library. Manuscript. Cotton Vitellius A XV, along with the Thorkelin transcriptions of Beowulf.
Essentially the complete English poetic canon from the 8th century to the early 20th. Over 160,000 poems by more than 1,250 poets drawn from nearly 4,500 printed sources.
This subscription is limited to four simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
Librarian's Comment: This database can be searched for Old English poetry including Beowulf, Judith, and poems from the Exeter Book.
This connects three major Middle English electronic resources: the Middle English Dictionary, a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse, and a Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, as well as providing links to other digital collections and catalogs.
MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association)
Indexes periodicals and series, monographs, book collections, dissertation abstracts, Festschriften (books written to honor a particular scholar), and other sources. Areas covered include modern languages and literature, folklore, linguistics, literary themes, genres, and related topics across national literatures and other classified boundaries. Covers from 1963 to the present. Updated 9 times per year. Has citation tools for Refworks, Endotes and Procite. It also has a personal folder option to save articles and citations.
Z 7006 .M64 (Ref. Index Shelves) (1921-present)
PE 1625 .O86 (Ref)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is an historical dictionary of English, covering the language from the earliest times to the present day. It provides not only the current meanings of words, but also traces their development through time. Entries contain detailed etymological analysis, and are illustrated by quotations from a wide range of English language sources from around the world, making the OED a unique historical record.
William Langland, The Piers Plowman electronic archive. Vol. 1. Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS 201
(Rare Books Room, CD-ROM PR 4)
The complete text, along with manuscript images, of Pier Plowman from Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 201.
Article and Index Databases
These resources are a miscellany of general and somewhat more specific article and index sources for history, music, art, literature and the humanities. More specifically medieval databases and the MLA database are noted above.
Formerly GroveArt Online, this comprehensive online reference resource for all aspects of the visual arts from prehistory to the present. Online access to articles on the art and culture of Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific. Includes the multi-volume Dictionary of Art, links to images and Web sites useful for art research. "Explore" allows users to customize browse lists. Also provides access to The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
This subscription is limited to five simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
Records over 23,000 Christian art works in worldwide collections from early apostolic time to 1400 AD. Records include subject and stylistic descriptors, school, object type, bibliographies and picture references, cross references, locations, and digital images, when available.(May not work from off campus.)
Indexes more than 400 of the leading journals in the arts, including areas such as archaeology, architecture, art history, city planning, crafts, film, folk art, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, musicology, painting, photography, sculpture, television, textiles, and video. Coverage is from 1984 with abstracts since 1994. Updated monthly.
(FirstSearch) Indexes articles from over 1,300 arts and humanities journals and selectively covers relevant articles from over 5,800 social science and science journals. Coverage is from 1980 to the present. Updated weekly. See also the Arts and Humanities Citation Index.
Index to 1.7 million citations to journals and edited books as well as book reviews in the field of religious studies. Coverage from 1908 to the present, with selected records back to 1818. Full text is provided for more than 285,300 electronic articles Updated twice a year.
Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest)
Indexes virtually all doctoral dissertations and many masters theses produced in the U.S. since 1860 and many from foreign schools as well. Abstracts available from 1980. Full text for most dissertations available from 1997. Some authors choose to not make their dissertations available. Print and microfilm copies are offered for a fee, but check out Interlibrary Loan before paying for a copy.
- RefWorks Info: Dissertations and Theses (Proquest) will export marked citations directly into your RefWorks account. (You will be prompted to login.)
Indexes and abstracts over 2,100 journals, books, and dissertations in world history, excluding the US and Canada, from 1450 to the present. Searches by subject, author, title, time period, or document type. Coverage: 1955 to present. Updated monthly.
This subscription is limited to six simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
Indexes more than 465 major humanities journals in art, history, literature, philosophy, religion, music, and related areas. Coverage from 1984, abstracts from 1994 to the present.
Z 7127 .P47x (Ref)
Indexes and abstracts journal articles, books, and other publications on philosophy covering ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, and logic as well as the philosophy of law, religion, science, history, education, and language. Coverage: 1940-date. Updated quarterly.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Indexes and abstracts over 475 music journals as well as dissertations, Festschriften, yearbooks, symposia, and other publications and electronic resrouces. Coverage is from 1967. Updated monthly.
Comprehensive catalog of books and other materials in libraries around the world. Contains millions of records in hundreds of languages. Non-book materials include (among other publication formats) the titles of journals and magazines, manuscripts, maps, electronic resources, websites, computer programs, music scores, films, slides, sound recordings, conference proceedings, and videotapes. Items located through WorldCat must be requested through Interlibrary Loan unless they are also listed in the WMU Libraries catalog.
Librarian's Comment: The call number supplied in the above description is for the print version only. Click on the live link to be taken to the online version (available only in the wmich.edu domain).