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Medieval manuscripts
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Introduction
International initiatives
Online catalogues
Digitized collections
Miniatures
More links
Many
library websites contain information about medieval manuscripts. This
page focuses on manuscript searching, not on palaeography or book
production. For clarity's sake I have tried to present the links in a
number of groups. A few international technological initiatives lead
the way in digital cataloguing and online presentation of manuscripts.
Links are shown to online catalogues of libraries with medieval
manuscripts and to databases with manuscripts containing particular
texts. Only a few libraries have yet digitized all their medieval
manuscripts. Since many people obviously love illuminated manuscripts,
you will find here some fine links to these kind of manuscripts,
presenting both some all time favourites but also some more surprising
examples. Some sites present whole groups of manuscripts or concentrate
on particular texts. To balance this rather personal choice of web
links this page ends with an offering of some large link collections
that will further guide you search to medieval manuscripts. At another
page of this site you will find more on digitisation
of the cultural heritage.
International initiatives
Introduction
International initiatives
Online catalogues
Digitized collections
Miniatures
More links
Online manuscript
catalogues
- National Union
Catalogue of Manuscripts Collections (NUCMC) - the Library of
Congress launched this site for searching medieval manuscripts in many
American collections
- Manuscript Catalogue,
British Library, London - a very important instrument for fast
searching of texts in many thousands manuscripts, also from more recent
centuries
- St.
John's College, Cambridge - a searchable version of M.R.
James' fine catalogue, with additional notes and also images
- Manuscripta
Mediaevalia, Marburg - a site for very detailed manuscript
research in German collections; apart from the searchable database you
can check digitized images of some 180 printed catalogues
- Calames - a database for the manuscripts in the holding of French universities and similar educational institutions, accompanied by a blog
- Catalogue collectif de France - one can search this database also for manuscripts
- Archives et Manuscrits, Bibliothèque Nationale de France - many manuscripts in Paris can be found using this online catalogue
- MANUS - a
database for searching medieval manuscripts in Italian libraries
- Codex -
Inventario dei manoscritti medievali della Toscana - a database with
now some 2000 manuscripts in Tuscany
- Hill
Monastic Manuscripts Library (HMML), Collegeville, Minn. -
this site enables searching for some ninety thousand manuscripts in
Austrian and Spanish libraries
- Porbase - this
online bibliographical database works also for medieval manuscripts in
Portuguese libraries
- Manuscript
catalogue, Universität Graz - one of the first online
manuscripts catalogue, showing also digitized images
- TABULAE-Datenbank,
Vienna - a database for the Codices 1-15500 of the Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek
- Beinecke
Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. - not only for
manuscripts, but also for other collections
- National Library of Scotland,
Edinburgh - both an online catalogue for searching manuscripts and an
overview with downloadable catalogues in PDF-format
- University Library,
Glasgow - searching both for manuscripts and the special
collections
- Manuscripts at Munich and
Augsburg - this commercial website enables access to some
electronic manuscript catalogues, among them the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek München (Clm and Cgm series)
- Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York - the catalogue of a library with more than
thousand beautiful manuscripts; as an additional service one can search
and admire some five
thousand images included in the famous Index of Christian Art
- Det
Kongelige Bibliotek, Kopenhagen - online versions of several
manuscript catalogues
- Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch
Collections - at last an online database for more than 8000
manuscripts in Dutch holdings, presented by the Royal Library (The
Hague), with as a very useful extra a paleographical atlas
- Quaerite:
manuscripts in Utrecht University Library - a searchable database with bibliographical information and a digitized version of the old catalogue by P.A. Tiele
- CICWEB -
Online guide to medieval manuscripts in Wallonia - Brussels, an
initiative of the Royal
Library, Brussels and the journal Scriptorium
Apart
from catalogues for one or more libraries there are important
repertoria for particular kinds of manuscripts:
- Bibliotheca Neerlandica
Manuscripta - an online database at Leiden University,
containing information about more than twenty thousand manuscripts with
texts in Middle Dutch, based on the updated notices of Willem de Vreese
- Handschriftencensus
- a huge database for manuscripts with Middle German texts
(Universitätsbibliothek Marburg)
- Repertorium
der kanonistischen Handschriften, Leipzig - a repertory
started by Gero Dolezalek for medieval manuscripts with canon law
texts, see also the page on medieval
canon law
- Chant
behind the dikes - the site of Ike de Loos (The
Hague-Tilburg) on medieval liturgical manuscripts from the Netherlands
- Musica devota -
the website of Ulrike Hascher-Burger (Amsterdam) on the musical
manuscripts of the Devotio Moderna
- Medieval logical
manuscripts, Leiden - a project of L.M. de Rijk and E.P. Bos, now on a server of the Huygens Institute, The Hague; check also their weblog on electronic publishing
- JORDANUS,
medieval mathematical manuscripts, Munich - a database with
many thousand manuscripts, maintained by Menso Folkerts, also on a
server of the Max-Planck-Institut
für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
- Irish Script on Screen
(ISOS), Dublin - a project of several libraries concerning manuscripts
with medieval Irish texts
- PhiloBiblon,
Berkeley - a searchable database for manuscripts with texts from
Galicia, Catalonia, Portugal and Spain
- Europeana Regia - a project for the online reconstruction with digitized medieval manuscrips of three royal libraries: Carolingian manuscripts, manuscripts once owned by Charles V of France, and manuscripts from the kingdom of Aragon-Naples
Introduction
International initiatives
Online catalogues
Digitized collections
Miniatures
More links
Digitized manuscript
collections
The
following sites present seamless examples of cataloguing and digitizing
complete collections of medieval manuscripts:
Introduction
International initiatives
Online catalogues
Digitized collections
Miniatures
More links
Miniatures
One should mention in particular a number of French
sites for searching illuminations in medieval manuscripts:
-
Mandragore,
base iconographique - searching the illuminated manuscripts
of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
- Liber Floridus
- a search site for the illuminated manuscript at two Parisian
libraries, the Mazarine and Sainte-Geneviève
- Enluminures
- this site offers access to illuminated manuscripts in the major
French municipal libraries
- Le Moyen Âge en
lumière - images from illuminated manuscripts in France
selected around several themes
And of
course one can find elsewhere in Europe and America web sites with
illuminated manuscripts:
One
should mention also individual manuscripts. Either the illumination or
the texts can be the reason for digitalisation:
- The
Utrecht Psalter - the famous Carolingian manuscript, since
1732 at Utrecht University Library [ms. 32]
- The
"Dyksche handschrift" - this manuscript with the Middle Dutch
animal epic "Van den vos Reynaerde" (Renard the Fox) and "Der naturen
bloeme" [The flower of nature] by Jacob van Maerlant had been
inaccessible for many decades [Universiteitsbibliothek Münster, N.R.
381]
- Les Très Riches Heures
du Duc de Berry - the most famous medieval Book of Hours
[Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 65]
- Bordesholmer
Marienklage - a fifteenth century musical manuscript
[Universitätsbibliothek Kiel, ms. Bordesholm 23]
- Rostocker
Liederbuch - another 15th century manuscript, this time with
students' songs [Universitätsbibliothek Rostock, Mss. phil. 100/2]
- Codex Manesse
- the marvellously illustrated medieval songbook
[Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal Germ. 848]
- The Babylonian
Talmud - the only surviving almost complete medieval
manuscript [Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 95]
- Medieval
manuscripts of the socalled Rhenish mystics - digitized
manuscripts at Strasbourg University Library, with texts by Eckhart,
Tauler and Seuse, see also my Eckhart
page
- Manuscripta
Mediaevalia - Manuscripts Online - a quick route for viewing
digitized images of a wide variety of medieval manuscripts at
Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Berlin, Marburg and Fulda
- Sagnanet - medieval
manuscripts and old prints with the medieval Icelandic sagas, an
initiative of the National
and University Library, Reykjavik, and Cornell University
- Det Kongelige Bibliotek,
Kopenhagen - a fine collection of digitized medieval and later
manuscripts
Introduction
International initiatives
Online catalogues
Digitized collections
Miniatures
More links
More links
- Bifolium - the web versio of the bulletin from Groningen started by the late Jos Hermans
- Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts - a useful database at UCLA for searching medieval manuscripts that are accessible online
- Palaeography and Manuscript Studies - a very useful set of pages at the Senate House Library, University of London
-
Palaeography,
codicology, manuscripts - the uncommented but very handy list
by Bob Peckham of links for palaeography, manuscripts, journals about
medieval manuscripts and other link collection
- Manuscripta
Mediaevalia: Links, Marburg - a useful link collection at the
site of the well known German database
- Latin
manuscript books before 1600 - an online version at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Munich, of Paul Oskar Kristeller's survey of manuscript catalogues
(third edition, 1993)
- Institut des Recherches
sur l'Histoire des Textes (IRHT), Paris-Orleans -
the international centre for manuscript research and text editions with
several databases on manuscripts
- Vocabulaire
codicologique - a multilingual version of the book by Denis
Muzerelle (IRHT) from 1985; French, English, Italian and Spanish, but
no German, and for Dutch only terms on bookbinding
- Links für
Handschriftenbearbeiter - this Vienna link collection
presents links for many aspects of manuscript research
- Virtuelle
Bibliothek-Geschichtliche Hilfswissenschaften: Handschriften und
Bibliotheken - a good links collection with comments, edited
at the University of Munich; see also their web page for codicology
- Mittelalterliche
Handschriften - another useful links collection at the well
known Erlanger Historikerseite
- Manuscrits
enluminés - a fine annotated list of websites with medieval
miniatures at the French portal for medieval studies Ménestrel;
one should visit also their similar pages on paleography, individual
manuscripts and texts and all related subjects which form a very well organized sub portal
- Handschriftenlinks,
Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
- Zeroland
manuscripts links - there are some rarely mentioned items in
this New Zealand link collection
- Textmanuscripts
- a well organized links database at the website of the antiquarian
booksellers Les
Enluminures, Chicago and Paris
- Pecia: le manuscrit médiéval
- a weblog by Jean-Luc Deuffic as a companion to his site Pecia,
both in French and English, on medieval manuscripts
Introduction
International initiatives
Online catalogues
Digitized collections
Miniatures
More links
ov - April 20, 2012
