2. Search Engines and Overarching Databases

  • British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/. Also has a useful glossary of technical terms.
  • The Digital Scriptorium: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/digitalscriptorium/. Describes itself as ’an image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.’ Using keywords in the search engine often turns up useful and extensive results, but the site offers ‘samples’ of pages from its MSS, rather than full facsimiles.
  • Manuscripta Medievalia, Digitalisierte Handschriften: http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/. A portal with links to collections of digitised manuscripts in various German libraries.
  • Manuscriptorium: http://www.manuscriptorium.com/. Describes itself as ‘a virtual research environment providing access to all existing digital documents in the sphere of historic book resources (manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books, maps, charters and other types of documents).... The service provides seamless access to more than 5 million digital images.’
  • Medieval Digital Resources: A Curated Guide and Database: http://mdr-maa.org. Hosted by the Medieval Academy of America, ‘MDR is a curated database of peer-reviewed digital materials for the study of the Middle Ages. Users can browse an alphabetical list or search using controlled-vocabulary subject tags to find vetted online resources of many types, including: imagebanks; bibliographies and reference works; pedagogical tools; editions and translations; music and other multimedia collections; interpretative websites; and new works of digital scholarship.’
  • Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections: http://www.mmdc.nl/static/site/. Provides descriptions of all medieval western manuscripts up to c.1550 written in Latin script and preserved in public and semi-public collections in the Netherlands.
  • The Monastic Manuscript Project: www.earlymedievalmonasticism.org. A database of texts and resources relevant to the history of early medieval monasticism, which includes an extremely valuable list of links to online catalogues of medieval manuscripts.
  • Nuova Biblioteca Manoscritta: http://www.nuovabibliotecamanoscritta.it/. An online catalogue of medieval manuscripts held in the libraries of the Veneto with links to digitised examples.
  • The Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220: http://www.le.ac.uk/ee/em1060to1220/index.html. An e-book that aims to ‘identify, analyse and evaluate all manuscripts containing English written in England between 1060 and 1220; to produce an analytical corpus of material from late Anglo-Saxon England, through the Norman Conquest and into the high Middle Ages; to investigate key questions including the status of written English relative to French and Latin; and to raise awareness of agenda informing the production of so many texts in English during this important period’.

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