Library Research Guides: MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES: Find Primary Resources

How do I find primary sources?

Q: I don't read Latin/Old High German/Medieval Arabic/etc. How can I find sources in English?

A: You're in luck! There are many resources in English right here in the library and online. Click the links in the grey and white box for some of the larger ones. To find even more, perhaps on a specific topic, try finding one by beginning at a more generalized topic.

For example, I clicked on the link in the grey box for Medieval worlds: a sourcebook. In SuperSearch, you can click on the details button (pictured below) and scroll to see the genre and subjects listed. These subjects are clickable and may lead you to similar resources. Try clicking on them to find more sources in translation!

Medieval Worlds: A Sourcebook
Link is to the ebook. Wellesley also holds a paper copy in the stacks.

A great number of primary sources in translation, some of which include secondary sources for further reading at the end of the entry.
The Crusades: a reader
Call Number: D151 .C77 2014
This beautiful addition to the Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures series brings together an unprecedented range of primary source texts on the topic from the medieval era. Of special note are the non-Christian materials—Muslim and Jewish sources—included along with standard European Christian texts.
Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources
Call Number: DP97.4 .M43 2012
The documents collected date from the 8th through the 15th centuries and have been translated from Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese. Includes visual materials and increased coverage of Jewish and Muslim affairs, as well as more sources pertaining to women, social and economic history, and domestic life.
English Literature from Widsith to the Death of Chaucer; a Source Book
Call Number: PR255 .B4

Epistolae: Medieval Women's Letters
Letters translated from the Latin, 4th-13th century AD. Courtesy of Joan Ferrante, Columbia University.
Eurodocs: Medieval Sources
Sources from Medieval Europe from Gothic tribal history to Dutch manucripts to the Visogoths to William the Conqueror.
Global Medieval Sourcebook
Online, interactive collection of medieval texts and their translations - Stanford University
NetSERF: The Internet Connection for Medieval Resources
an ever-expanding site that lists various online resources dealing with the medieval world. There is an excellent link to a Medieval Glossary on the left side of the opening page.
MEMSlib
Lists of sources from the Medieval period through the Early Modern period in translation and in the original text. Includes the history of art, drama, literature, and more.

Renaissance and Reformation, 1300-1648
Writings by leading figures in religion, politics, the arts and sciences, as well as official documents, offer original source material on the central issues of European history during this period
A Literary Source-Book of the German and Italian Renaissance
Ages of Woman, Ages of Man: Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750
The sources address the numerous and varied ways in which women and men's notions of themselves affected their lives, and explore how accepted norms of masculine and feminine behaviour influenced social, economic, and religious change.
Renaissance Woman, a Sourcebook: Constructions of Femininity in England
Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook is an invaluable collection of accounts of women and femininity in early modern England. The volume is divided thematically into nine sections, each with an accessible introduction, notes on sources and an annotated bibliography.

Internet History Sourcebook: Renaissance
Sources in translation from the Renaissance and Reformation.
Eurodocs: Renaissance Sources
Translated sources on European Renaissance history from William of Orange's letters to Medici archives. Also check the Eurodocs links for individual countries!

The France and England Project: Medieval Manuscripts between 700 and 1200
800 manuscripts from The British Library and the Bibliotheque nationale de France, digitized and organized by theme, authors, places, and centuries. Subcategories are fairly fine and provide the searcher with good control over the search results.

Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
EEBO is a full text primary source archive of nearly every book published in English in the Early Modern period. It covers all subjects including literature, science, religion, politics, and more.
Dates: 1473-1700 CE

Treasures in Full: Caxton's Chaucer
On this site you will find William Caxton's two editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, probably printed in 1476 and 1483. A reader can examine the original texts, read background information, check a bibliographic reference section, and examine other links on Caxton and Chaucer.
Digital Scriptorium
A growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.

Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700 This link opens in a new window
A primary source archive of the relatively unknown writing of early modern women authors in the British Isles, from poetry to diaries, speeches to almanacs.
Dates: 1500-1719 CE

Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
illustrated and searchable catalog Western illuminated medieval and Renaissance manuscripts held in the British Library. Each manuscript has an electronic description and a selection of captioned images.
The Camelot Project
Interviews with authors and historians, full text of poetry and stories, and other sources from the Arthurian world.

British Library: "Picturing Places"
A number of digitized medieval maps and places depicted in other ways. Sort by date and place.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Includes some medieval maps.

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Digitized images of art, architecture, and other forms of visual culture from around the world, from museums, archaeology, photo archives, slide collections, and art reference works.
Dates: BCE to present

The Mackinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations
Over 1000 images of medieval medical manuscripts, searchable by keyword and browsable by date, location, and subject.

Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Sources relevant to the history of the medieval world, organized and collected for ease of academic use. Edited by Paul Halsall, the ORB Sources editor, at Fordham.
The Labyrinth
The Labyrinth provides free, organized access to resources in medieval studies. The Labyrinth’s easy-to-use links provide connections to databases, services, texts, and images around the world.
Medieval Family Life
A database containing the papers of several families. Includes some visual materials.
Medieval Travel Writing
This collection from Adam Matthew Digital presents manuscripts of some of the most important works of European travel writing from the later medieval period. The chief focus is on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia.
Gazetteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516
a massive Internet project providing a descriptive list of the more than 2,100 markets & 2,500 fairs in England & Wales, c. 900-1516 CE. Samantha Letters, of the University of London, Centre for Metropolitan Research, is using the pre-1974 designations for English counties, listing markets & fairs by town within the counties.
Avalon Project: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Documents
Legal and political documents relating to the Roman Catholic Church, imperial decrees, laws, the Magna Carta, and more.