Subject guides: Medieval and Early Modern Studies: Primary Sources

Manuscripts and other sources online

Medieval Manuscripts on the Web
Quick access to various digitization projects on the web, collated by the University of British Columbia.
Bodleian Medieval manuscripts

Medieval Travel Writing via Adam Matthew
The full-text and images of European travel writing manuscripts from the later medieval period, with a focus on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia.
For more information on text & data mining
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Medieval Family Life via Adam Matthew
The five major letter collections in existence from fifteenth century England, Britain'sfirst surviving records of private correspondence, are available as full colour images of the medieval manuscripts.
For more information on text & data mining
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History of Medieval & Renaissance Europe: Primary Documents
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Portal to full text sites on the Web.
Parker Library on the Web
Digital copies of items spanning from the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine to sixteenth-century records of the Reformation from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The browse, images and descriptions are free to view.
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Matthew Parker (1504-75) salvaged medieval manuscripts dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries.

Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus
The Dictionary of Old English electronic corpus is a complete record of surviving Old English except for some variant manuscripts of individual texts. There are 3037 texts in the corpus.

DOE: Dictionary of Old English
Searchable vocabulary of the first six centuries (600 - 1150 A.D.) of the English language, from the letters A to I.
OEC : Old English Corpus via SETIS
This edition of the Corpus has been constructed from a version supplied by the Dictionary of Old English project in November 2004.

Middle English Compendium
Access to three major Middle English electronic resources, - Middle English Dictionary, a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse and a Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse.

Beowulf
Electronic Beowulf Project.
Piers Plowman Electronic Archive
The Piers Plowman archive aims to eventually create a hyper-textually linked electronic archive of the textual tradition of all three versions of the work. Currently available are editions of B manuscripts.
The Robin Hood Project at the University of Rochester
This site makes available in electronic format a database of texts, images, bibliographies, and basic information about the Robin Hood stories and other outlaw tales. The project is sponsored by the University of Rochester and prepared in The Robbins Library.
English Poetry
A machine-readable corpus encompassing the works of thousands of poets from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the 19th century. It consists primarily of the works by the poets listed in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (Cambridge, 1969-72).

Lincoln Cathedral Library : the mediaeval manuscript collection.
Call Number: Fisher Closed Compactus 091.0942 5
The subject matter includes theology, canon law, devotional books, music and literature, 83 microfilm reels.

The mediaeval manuscripts at Lambeth Palace Library
Call Number: Fisher Closed Compactus 745.670941 3
Section 3: The illuminated manuscripts
Medieval literary and historical manuscripts in the Cotton Collection from the British Library
Call Number: Fisher Closed Compactus 820.8 302
Robert Cotton was a noted collector of manuscripts. Pt. 2. Reels 22-25 Cotton Caligula-Cotton Claudius contains works such as the Chronicles of Henry V and state papers; Piers Plowman; correspondence of Lanfrance; poems by Lydgate.
Westminster Abbey Library, the early manuscript collection
Call Number: Fisher Closed Compactus 091.0942 3
Contains 45 manuscripts and fragments of mostly late medieval manuscripts. 12 reels.
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in microfiche facsimile.
Call Number: Fisher Closed Compactus 015.41 21
v. 1. Books of prayers and healing -- v. 2. Psalters --v. 3. Anglo-Saxon gospels -- v. 4. Glossed texts, Aldhelmiana, psalms -- v. 5. Latin manuscripts with Anglo-Saxon glosses. 175 microfiche

Arnamagnaean Institute
Arnamagnaean manuscript collection of Icelandic texts and digitisation project.
Dokumentasjons Prosjektet
Information on a wide range of aspects of Norwegian language and culture.
Irish Literature, Mythology, Folklore, and Drama
Extensive links to both old and modern Irish literature, folklore and drama.
Old-Irish-L
Old Irish language literature. Contains links to other sites of interest.
Old Norse manuscripts
This site provides access to historical manuscripts dating back hundreds of years. Provided by the National and University Library of Iceland.
Project Runeberg: Nordic literature on-line since 1992
Access to the Internet's most extensive site for Nordic literature.
CELT: Corpus of electronic texts
Contemporary and historical Irish documents in literature, history and politics. Multilingual texts (in Old, Middle, Classical and Early Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Latin, English and German).

Eighteenth Century Fiction : ECF via SETIS
Eighteenth Century Fiction includes 96 complete works in English prose from the period 1700-1780, by writers from the British Isles.
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe library and archive is a Performing Arts repository, specialising in Shakespeare in Performance.
Shakespeare
Access to major editions and adaptations of Shakespeare including the First Folio (1623) and Bell's acting editon of plays (1774).

World Shakespeare Bibliography Online
Access to annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare and published or produced from 1971.
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Early Modern Literary Studies
This site provides a link to a number of sixteenth and seventeenth century resources of interest to literary scholars.
Sixteenth Century Renaissance English Literature (1485-1603)
This site combines three sites first created in 1996 to provide full-text materials for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. The main authority used for accuracy of dates and details is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition.
English Prose Drama
English Prose Drama contains more than 1,600 plays written by more than 350 different authors from the Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century. The database includes plays, masques, entertainments, and certain closet dramas.
English Verse Drama Full Text Database via SETIS
More than 2,000 works by around 450 named authors and approximately 230 anonymous works, from the Shrewsbury Fragments of the late thirteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century.
Early English Prose Fiction : EEPF via SETIS
Over 200 works of prose fiction dating from 1500-1700. It includes Elizabethan fiction, Jest Books, collections of short pieces and novellas, Restoration fiction and works of popular fiction.