Subject Guides: Centre for Medieval Studies: Resources

Books

Books can be a great place to start your reading around a topic.

Most of our books are located in the JB Morrell Library. Many books will also be available online as e-books. Look for the links in YorSearch, under the View It section of each book.

Shelf location	Subject
C	Religion
M	Literature
MA	English Literature
P	Archaeology
Q	History

Search for books and journals on YorSearch

Journals & databases

All journal titles are listed on YorSearch, and can be found by searching the journal title.

If you don't have a specific title in mind, you can browse journals in your subject area on Browzine. Journals are organised by field of research, such as:

Browse all Arts and Humanities

History

Literature

Medieval/Renaissance Studies

Journals and articles

In addition to the resources listed below, this blog from the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities contains a useful list of free online resources for Medievalists.

Palaeography resources:

Helpful language resources:

Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar
Alternative route to Lewis and Short's Latin-English Lexicon
Ducange online
A glossary not a lexicon, but has extensive medieval meanings.
Latin Vocabulary and Grammar Aid
Niermeyer online
Online edition of Niermeyer's Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus
Whitaker’s words
Online parsing aid

Audiovisual collections
Map resources
Rare Books Collection
Theses and Dissertations
York Digital Library (YODL)
York Digital Library (YODL) provides access to over 69,000 resources, which include images, archive material and rare books. Some of the material is public, some of the collections can be accessed by members of the University only and some collections are restricted to students taking certain courses. Remember to login so that you can see the full range of resources available to you.

Use the following links to search Library collections outside the University of York. Remember that you can use the Library's Interlending service to get items that we don't have in stock at York, or you can catch our free minibus to the British Library Document Supply Centre at Boston Spa. You can visit and sometimes borrow from other libraries using the SCONUL Access scheme.

The British Library
Search the British Library's main catalogue to identify items from a collection of 57 million.
Library Hub Discover
Search over 70 UK and Irish academic, national and specialist library catalogues.
Institute of Historical Research
The catalogue and guide to collections of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London School of Advanced Study.
WorldCat
Search WorldCat and search the collections of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.

Databases

To start a more detailed search for articles and other research evidence, you'll need to use online databases. These are collections of resources that allow you to search for articles from hundreds of different journals at the same time.

Databases

Arts & Humanities Citation Index (Web of Science) This link opens in a new window
Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities.

For help using this resource for bibliometrics see Bibliometrics: a practical guide.

Accessibility information
BIAB: the British & Irish Archaeological Bibliography (via ADS Library) This link opens in a new window
The BIAB online database contains datasets covering publications from AD 1695 to the present day on archaeology and the historic environment, historic buildings, maritime and industrial archaeology, environmental history, and the conservation of material culture - with a geographical focus on Britain and Ireland.

Accessibility information
Bibliography of British and Irish History (Brepolis) This link opens in a new window
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Previously known as the Royal Historical Society Bibliography this is a comprehensive guide to historical writing about the history of Britain, Ireland, and the British overseas from 55BC to the present.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.
International Medieval Bibliography Online (Brepolis) This link opens in a new window
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This is an interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages, covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in the period 400-1500.

The publication years covered by this resource are from 1967 onwards.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.
ITER This link opens in a new window
A gateway to electronic resources for the study of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (400-1700). Its content includes:

- Iter Bibliography covering research in this period.
- International Directory of Scholars
- The Medici Archive Project
- Aestimatio which provides a critical assessment of scientific manuscripts and books from antiquity to the early modern period.
Oxford Bibliographies Online: Medieval Studies This link opens in a new window
An up-to-date and authoritative guide to the literature across a wide range of topics in medieval studies. Sources covered include journal articles, reference works, monographs and book chapters.

Accessibility information

Texts and translations

Acta Sanctorum (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Brings together materials on the lives of the saints from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the sixteenth century, in critical editions with commentaries on the source documents. This database version currently contains the volumes for the ecclesiastical months from January to June.

Accessibility information

Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Large collection of Christian texts mostly in translation. Includes the Latin texts of Augustine, Aquinas and Rolle.

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (Brepolis) This link opens in a new window
The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (DMLBS) is the most comprehensive dictionary of Medieval Latin to have been produced and the first ever to focus on British Medieval Latin. It covers the period from Gildas (fl. 540) to William Camden (1600) and is based on the close reading of thousands of Medieval Latin texts and systematic searches within computer databases.

This online version includes the complete text of the printed volumes and allows searching by headwords, Latin word-forms, non-Latin word-forms, textual references and the full text.
Dictionary of Old English Corpus This link opens in a new window
A complete record of surviving Old English, except for some variant manuscripts of individual texts.
Early English Books Online [EEBO] (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Contains over 100,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).

Accessibility information

Fathers of the Church
Large collection of Patristic texts in translation.

Library of Latin Texts (Brepolis) This link opens in a new window
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Full texts in Latin of Church fathers and others from antiquity into the Middle Ages. It contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livus Andonicus, 240BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Texts are taken from the Corpus Christianorum and many other sources.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.
Manchester Medieval Sources Online This link opens in a new window
Thirty-four titles from the Manchester University Press Medieval Sources series providing translations of key medieval texts accompanied by introductory and explanatory material. Titles in the series focus on the diverse cultural and social as well as political conditions that affected the functioning of all levels of medieval society.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica This link opens in a new window
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A collection of medieval historical sources for the study of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the Middle Ages. The collection consists of five main divisions, Antiquitates, Diplomata, Epistolae, Leges and Scriptores.
Parker Library on the Web This link opens in a new window
The Parker Library on the Web is an interactive, web-based workspace designed to support use and study of the manuscripts in the historic Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It gives access to almost 200,000 manuscript page images, page images of secondary sources, manuscript descriptions, and extensive bibliographic data. Bibliographic records are linked to page images wherever possible. The manuscripts date from the 6th to 16th centuries and include works on various subjects such as theology, music, history, travel, alchemy and politics.
Patrologia Latina (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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).

Accessibility information
Translated Texts for Historians E-Library This link opens in a new window
Titles from the Translated Texts for Historians book series giving access to the full text of historical sources published between 300 and 800 AD translated into English from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Georgian and Armenian. Each volume provides an expert scholarly translation, with an introduction setting texts and authors in context, and with notes on content, interpretation and debates.

You will not have access to titles published after March 2019

Accessibility information

Historical documents

Calendar of Patent Rolls
Searchable edition of published medieval Calendars of Patent Rolls.
Cause Papers
A searchable catalogue of more than 14,000 cause papers relating to cases heard between 1300 and 1858 in the Church Courts of the diocese of York. The original records are held in the Borthwick Institute for Archives. A valuable resource for scholars interested in social, ecclesiastical, economic and legal history.
DMMap: Digitized Medieval Manuscripts app
The DMMapp (Digitized Medieval Manuscripts app) links to more than 500 libraries in the world. Each one of these contains digitized medieval manuscripts that can be browsed for free.
English Historical Documents Online
Over 5,500 fully searchable primary documents from the years 500 to 1914 covering a wide range of topics, from political and constitutional issues to social, economic, religious and cultural history.

The sources include treaties, statutes, declarations, government and cabinet proceedings, military dispatches, orders, acts, sermons, newspaper articles, pamphlets, personal and official letters and diaries.
Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275-1504
This new edition reproduces the rolls, together with a full translation of all the texts from the three languages used by the medieval clerks (Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English).
more...
The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272 – 1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485 – 1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords and, somewhat later, of the commons. The rolls, which amount in total to over four million words, were first edited in the eighteenth century and published in 1783 in six folio volumes entitled Rotuli Parliamentorum ( RP) under the general editorship of the Reverend John Strachey. This new edition reproduces the rolls edited in RP in their entirety, plus those subsequently published by Cole, Maitland, and Richardson and Sayles as well as a substantial amount of material never previously published.
York Archbishops' Registers
York's Archbishops Registers Revealed provides free access to over 20,000 images of Registers produced by the Archbishops of York, 1225-1650, in addition to a growing searchable index of names, subjects, places and organisations. The registers are a valuable, and in many cases, unexploited source for ecclesiastical, political, social, local and family history - covering periods of war, famine, political strife and religious reformation in the Archdiocese of York and the wider Northern Province.

Centre for Medieval Studies

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Books

Journals & databases

Journals

Journals and articles

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Databases

Texts and translations

Historical documents