LibGuides: HIST 4761/6761 MEDVL 4761/6761 Albion: Post-Roman, Pre-Norman (Fall 2023): Primary Sources

Definitions

What makes a source primary?

Depends on the topic; it can be complicated.
Talk specifics with your advisor.

Very basic, simplistic definition: What is a primary source?

Useful Tips

Browse footnotes and bibliographies of books, encyclopedias, and articles for information about primary sources.

Search the Library Catalog for primary sources--both unpublished manuscripts and modern editions in print and online, sometimes in translation, of original primary medieval sources. Use the guided keyword search with terms like:

sources
diaries
personal narrative
interview
letters

Primary Sources in English Translation

Selected sources in English Translation

Translated texts for Historians Classical and medieval primary sources in translation.

Manchester medieval sources. Translated texts on a wide variety of topics published in part or in full as print books and ebooks.

Loeb Classical Library A fully searchable, virtual library of Greek and Latin literature with English translations. Includes epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; and, those Church Fathers who made particular use of pagan culture.

CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts Online corpus of multilingual texts of Irish literature and history and the arts. Includes Old, Middle, Classical and Early Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Latin, English and German, French, and English translations of Irish texts. It is Ireland's longest running Humanities Computing/Digital Humanities project.

British History Online Some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust.

For a selection of the writings of the Church Fathers in English full-text online, see The Catholic Encyclopedia online's new Fathers section or Early Church Fathers

Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Paul Halsall, Editor) selected, excerpted primary sources full text online
A good place to get started; a good way to see what might be readily available. In most cases, these are not the best editions (which are copyrighted) so check the library catalog for more recent complete and critical translations (or email me for help). See also, Selected Medieval Sources: Islam and Jewish

Ferguson, Mary Anne. Bibliography of English translations from medieval sources, 1943-1967. New York, Columbia University Press, 1974. (Olin Library Graduate Study Center, Room 501 and Olin Reference Z6517 .F35) and Bibliography of English translations from medieval sources, by Clarissa P. Farrar and Austin P. Evans. New York, Columbia University Press, 1946. (Olin Library Graduate Study Center, Room 501 and Olin Reference Z6517 .F24). Outdated and superseded, but can still be useful on occasion, especially for brief works (a single letter or poem) or excerpts of longer works contained within books or articles.

Venti Belli A list of additional primary sources, some in English.

Digital Primary Source Collections in Original Language

Acta Sanctorum
The complete texts of the sixty-eight printed volumes, from the two January volumes published in 1643 to the Propylaeum to December published in 1940. Print volumes.
Patrologia Latina Database
A complete electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865). Index volumes are 218-221. Texts from AD 200 through the 13th century plus later ecclesiastical and humanistic scholarship.
Print volumes: Patrologia Cursus Compeletus.
PDF of print volumes in HathiTrust.
Library of Christian Latin Texts: CLCLT
Incomplete and in progress. Selected works from the classical period, the most important patristic works, a very extensive corpus of Medieval Latin literature. Volumen 1: Antiquity, Patristic period up to 500, Vulgate Bible; Volumen II: Second Patristic Period, 501-735; Volumen III: 736-1500 and Neo-Latin period 1501-present. Includes texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livius Andronicus, 240 BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), as well as the complete works of writers such as Cicero, Virgil, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas a Kempis. Includes many volumes published in the Corpus Christianorum, both the Series Latina and the Continuatio Mediaeualis, and the opera omnia of major authors. Helpful Guide to Searching, from Berkeley
Bibliotheca Teubneriana Latina
Latin literature from the Roman Republic to the Imperial Period and Late Antiquity. The database is the electronic version of the Bibliotheca scriptorum Romanorum Teubneriana. Complete, except for prefaces or critical apparatus, from the standard editions (editions maiores) of about 800 works spread over eleven centuries (c. 300 BC/BCE to c. 800 AD/CE).
Gallica
Includes many digitized classic medieval collections of primary sources originally published in the 19th century such as the multi-volume Recueil des historiens des croisades. Use the [challenging] Gallica catalog to find the fulltext.
Primary Sources for the Study Of Liturgy, Hagiography and Other Aspects Of Medieval Studies
Helen Davis, Special Collections, Boole Library, University College Cork.
ARTFL
A Cooperative Project of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the University of Chicago, ARTFL is a research tool for scholars and students in all areas of French Studies. Full-text online of nearly 2000 French texts, ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing. The eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries are about equally represented, with a smaller selection of seventeenth century texts as well as some medieval and Renaissance texts. A Provençal database that includes 38 texts in their original spellings has recently been added. The Web interface allows one to search the corpus easily for words, stems, phrases and co-occurrences.
Brepols cross-database search tool
Allows searching across all the medieval and classical digital corpora produced by Brepols.
CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts
Online corpus of multilingual texts of Irish literature and history and the arts. Includes Old, Middle, Classical and Early Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Latin, English and German, French, and English translations of Irish texts. It is Ireland's longest running Humanities Computing/Digital Humanities project.
Archive of Celtic-Latin literature
Incomplete and in progress. Contains the texts processed thus far from the corpus of Celtic-Latin literature from the period 400-1200 as part of the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources project.

Monumenta Germaniae historica (MGH).
Sources in Latin 500-1500 A.D. from or about medieval Germany, the Franks, and areas of Germanic influence in medieval Europe.
Print volumes of the MGH newer series can be located by a title or keyword search in the Cornell online catalog. Contents of each volume of the MGH original older series as well as an index by author and title/subject can be found in "Indices eorvm qvae Monvmentorvm Germaniae historicorvm temis hvcvsqve editis continentvr." Scripservnt O. Holder-Egger et K. Zevmer. Hannoverae, Impensis bibliopolii Hahniani; [etc., etc.] 1890. Call Number: Olin Room 404 +DD3.M81 Z5). For a comprehensive online catalog of the all the print volumes, try: Monumenta Germaniae Historica
For a good overview of this complex series, try "Guide to the Sources of Medieval History," Call number: Olin Reference Z6517 .C12, pp. 220-.

Monumenta Germaniae Historica online (eMGH)
Incomplete. Selected texts from the five divisions of Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Scriptores, Leges, Diplomata, Epistolae, Antiquitates). As of fall 2007 only includes 800 texts.
Loeb Classical Library
A fully searchable, virtual library of Greek and Latin literature with English translations. Includes epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; and, those Church Fathers who made particular use of pagan culture.