Online resources

• Last updated: 2012-03.
• An updated version of this page is maintained more regularly at metametamedieval.com

For pre-1800 Romance languages, literatures, and culture; almost all are free and publicly-accessible, some (projects, usually) may require subscription.

→ RESOURCES LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY
→ RESOURCES FOR MANUSCRIPTS AND MANUSCRIPT STUDIES
→ RESOURCES CULTURAL:
→→ THE FOUR-STAR ONE-STOP RESOURCES
→→ THE COMPLETE LIST

RESOURCES LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY

Dictionaries, texts, projects and hyperprojects, and online libraries and metasites. Includes some Latin (e.g. Perseus) and some general-purpose sites, useful across all periods and languages (e.g. Project Gutenberg).

→ SEE ALSO: online resources for MANUSCRIPTS and on MANUSCRIPT STUDIES (palaeography, codicology, digital philology)

• AHLM: Asociación hispanica de literatura medieval
• AND: Anglo-Norman Dictionary Project (Aberystwyth University and Swansea University)
• Anglo-Norman Online Hub (Anglo-Norman / Old French dictionary (the AND) and texts; hyperlinked, marked up, searchable, etc.; Aberystwyth University and Swansea University)
• Antología de poesía española (c/o Fred Jehle, Indiana U.-Purdue U. Fort Wayne)
• ARLIMA: Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (excellent research resource, inc. bibliographies; international team of contributors across a wide range of Medieval literatures)
• Arnaut’s Babel / Baroque Forms of Poetry – medieval Occitan poetry (click on TROUBADOURS)
• ARTFL Project: includes texts and early dictionaries (University of Chicago)
• Arthuriana and Arthurnet (Southern Methodist University)
• Association des Bibliophiles Universels : E-text project in France principally containing later texts, but does feature some medieval ones
• Base de Français Médiéval (Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences humaines, Lyon)
• Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: also, a quick link (= the file directory of the Portal de la Educación Dominicana site) that works as a handy index by author
• Bibliotheca Augustana (Fachhochschule Augsburg) – inc. Biblioteca gallica & Biblioteca hispanica
• Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes (Université François-Rabelais, Tours; CNRS)
• Boccaccio’s Decameron (Brown University)
• Calderón de la Barca (page c/o Fred Jehle, Indiana U.-Purdue U. Fort Wayne)
• Camelot Project (University of Rochester, New York)
• Centre d’Études des Textes Médiévaux: Liens (Université Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne)
• Cervantes: Electronic resources for the study of Cervantes and his works (Eduardo Urbina, Texas A&M U)
• Cervantes Society of America and their official journal, Cervantes
• Club des Poètes
• Convivio. Poesía medieval y cancioneros (Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes / the Institut Joan Lluís Vives university network)
• Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum
• CURSUS: Medieval Liturgical Texts (University of East Anglia)
• Debora B. Schwartz’s Web Resources and Online Readings (Cal Poly – resources for Medieval English & French literature and women’s studies)
• Dictionnaire de l’Académie française
• Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXème au XVème siècle de Frédéric Godefroy (1880) c/o DicFro: click on “Open a dictionary” then “français” then “GdF 1880”. The Complément (1895) and the Lexique (1901) are here too.
• Dictionnaire des femmes de l’Ancienne France (Dictionary of Women in Medieval and Early Modern France, 5th-18th c.; c/o SIEFAR – Société Internationale pour l’Étude des Femmes de l’Ancien Régime)
• DMF : Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500) (ATILF-Nancy-Université et CNRS).
• DEAF: Dictionnaire étymologique de l’ancien français (Universität Heidelberg)
• Digital Dante Project (Columbia University)
• Early Modern Literary Studies: Electronic Texts (Sheffield Hallam University)
• École Nationale des Chartes (see PUBLICATIONS EN LIGNE)
• Electronic Boethius (Kevin Kiernan, University of Kentucky)
• An Electronic Library of the 15th Century Castilian Cancionero Manuscript Corpus (University of Liverpool)
• EMVI: Enciclopedia y biblioteca virtual de las ciencias sociales, económicas y jurídicas (Universidad de Málaga)
• Enlaces literararios del Sigle del oro at Parnaseo – Ciber-paseo por la literatura (Universitat de València)
• ETRC Textbase: Early Modern French Women Writers (University of Minnesota)
• French Medieval Drama Database Project (Brigham Young University)
• Gallica: Bibliothèque Nationale de France: provides some useful, if basic, information – click on “découverte,” click on appropriate term in the main image, then follow the icons (”thèmes,” “chronologies” and “iconographies” are better).
• Genres littéraires et extraits includes the aube, chanson de geste, roman courtois
• Góngora, Fabula de Polifemo y Galatea (c/o Fred Jehle, Indiana U.-Purdue U. Fort Wayne)
• Google Books
• Historians of Early Modern France
• International Alain Chartier Society
• International Arthurian Society (Université Rennes 2)
• International Joan of Arc Society (Southern Methodist University)
• International Marie de France Society (Virginia Commonwealth University)
• Internet Archive
• Internet Classics Archive (MIT)
• IRHT: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (CNRS)
• Jean Froissart Project (University of Sheffield)
• Labyrinth: see sites on Old French link
• Latin American Travelogues digital collection (Brown University)
• LIBRO: The Library of Iberian Resources Online (U of Central Arkansas)
• Literatura del Siglo de Oro: introducción (Esp. 402 course, 2001, Harry Vélez Quiñones, University of Puget Sound)
• Literatura Medieval Española (Esp 410 course, 2001, Harry Vélez Quiñones, University of Puget Sound)
• Lives of the Saints: The medieval French hagiography project (Amy Ogden, University of Virginia)
• The Medieval Bestiary and Chimaera: Bestiary blog (David Badke, University of Victoria)
• Medieval Travel Writing: (Adams Matthew Digital, c/o UBC Library; NB only accessible on-campus or via UBC myVPN)
• Meta-meta-medieval: concatenations – inc. online texts, mainly in e-lit resources, material sources, and hyperprojetcs
• Obscenity in Renaissance France (AHRC-funded project; University of Exeter; dir. Hugh Roberts)
• Online Froissart (The University of Sheffield, University of Liverpool, and AHRC)
• Online Medieval and Classical Library (University of Berkeley)
• Opere di Dante lemmatizzate (Università di Pisa, CiBit – Consorzio Interuniversitario Biblioteca Italiana Telematica)
• ORB: Reference Shelf: The On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies’ online textual resources (not just Medieval)
• Oxford Reference Online: inc. bilingual dictionaries; the Oxford English Dictionary c/o UBC Library (NB only accessible on-campus or via UBC myVPN)
• Parnaseo – Ciber-paseo por la literatura (Universitat de València)
• Partonopeus de Blois (Penny Eley, Penny Simons, Mario Longtin, Catherine Hanley, and Philip Shaw; published by the Humanities Institute of the University of Sheffield; supported by the University of Sheffield and the AHRC)
• Performing Medieval Narrative Today: a video showcase (Evelyn Birge Vitz, New York University)
• Perseus Digital Library (Classical history, literature, and culture; Tufts University)
• PhiloBiblon: bio-bibliographical database of early texts produced in the Iberian Peninsula; texts in Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan (University of California, Berkeley)
• The Philological Museum (The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham): humanistic and neo-Latin texts on the Web
• Princeton Charrette Project (first phase Princeton University, second phase Baylor University)
• Princeton Dante Project (Robert Hollander, Princeton University)
• Project Gutenberg: the Internet’s oldest producer of free electronic books (eBooks or eTexts)
• Renaissance Dante in Print (1472-1629): online exhibition (University of Notre Dame, University of Chicago, and the Newberry Library)
• Rialc: Repertorio informatizzato dell’antica letteratura catalana (Università di Napoli Federico II)
• Rialto: Repertorio informatizzato dell’antica letteratura trobadorica e occitana (Università di Napoli Federico II)
• Roman de la Rose Digital Library Digital Surrogates of Medieval Manuscripts (joint project of the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University and the Bibliothèque nationale de France)
• José María Ruano de la Haza: Calderón and other Golden Age (and earlier) online literary texts – El Corral del Príncipe virtual
• SATORBASE: Société d’analyse de la topique romanesque (database of topoi in French narrative literature of the Medieval to Early Modern periods; conseil d’administration inc. McMaster University, Université de Montréal, Université de Paris VII, … )
• Scribd
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Project (Dartmouth College)
• Timaeus Project (a.k.a. The Digby 23 Project; at Baylor University; dir. K. Sarah-Jane Murray)
• Le Trésor de la langue française – go to “Recherche d’un mot” (Analyse et traitement informatique de la langue française, CNRS) OR use this link + click on your type of connection + “Entrez dans le dictionnaire” OR c/o ARTFL Reference Collection
• Tristania (Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona)
• University of Virginia Library Digital Collections: used to be the Electronic Text Center (1992-2007), currently in process of migrating to new site
• VOS: Voice of the Shuttle (University of California, Santa Barbara)
• Wikisource
• World of Dante (Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities, University of Virginia)

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RESOURCES CULTURAL

The backdrop to the pre-1800 Romance literary world: history, geography, manuscripts, palaeography, music, art and architecture, science, links to museum and library sites (e.g. c/o Ménestrel), digitization and other hyper-projects, contemporary Medievalist and Renaissanceur virtual life (e.gg. Hortulus, Pecia, Renaissance Lit, and c/o O’Brien’s blogography), and four-star resources (mostly major multi-purpose meta-sites).

→ SEE ALSO: online resources for MANUSCRIPTS and on MANUSCRIPT STUDIES (palaeography, codicology, digital philology)

THE FOUR-STAR ONE-STOP RESOURCES

Major multi-purpose meta-sites. Modus operandi: based on the Michelin star system. The following not only satisfy every criterion for the award of one, two and three stars; they transcend the requirements for the latter, being as they are at the meta-level. Hence four stars. NB: there is some overlap with those sites awarded three stars for their coverage of manuscript matters; the two are not mutually exclusive, as the latter category is at a less “meta” level (subset vs. superset).

• **** Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA (links page)
• **** Consortium: medieval resources on the web (Michigan State University)
• **** Globe-Gate: Medieval and Renaissance sections of Tennessee Bob’s Famous French Links (University of Tennessee)
• **** Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University Centre for Medieval Studies / Paul Halsall, ORB sources editor)
• **** Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (University of Toronto Libraries)
• **** Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies (Georgetown University)
• **** Ménestrel: possibly the best and most up-to-date centralised resource for links to (mainly European) libraries and museums (the Sorbonne & Poitiers libraries, Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale – Poitiers/CNRS, Centre de recherches archéologiques et historiques anciennes et médiévales – Caen, Centre de recherches historiques CNRS/EHESS, Central European University – Budapest, École nationale des chartes, IRHT, Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris – CNRS/Université Paris 1-Sorbonne, Université Catholique de Louvain, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Université de Nancy 2)
• **** NetSerf: The Internet Connection for Medieval Resources (The Catholic University of America)
• **** ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies (College of Staten Island, City University of New York)
• **** PIMS: Internexus: online resources (Pontifical Insitute of Mediaeval Studies)
• **** RSA: Renaissance Society of America links database: from antiquity to ca. 1700
• **** Wikipedia

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CULTURE: THE COMPLETE LIST

• Albertine ( Royal Library of Belgium)
• Archimedes Palimpsest
• Archivo General de Indias: the main document repository for the study of the Spanish Administration in the New World (Ministerio de Cultura, Spain)
• Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (on-line resources)
• ARLIMA: Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (excellent research resource, inc. bibliographies; international team of contributors across a wide range of Medieval literatures)
• Arthuriana and Arthurnet (Southern Methodist University)
• ArtServe (Australian National University); includes a wealth of manuscript images on the Late Antique and Mediaeval Manuscripts pages and here
• Biblioteca de Catalunya
• Biblioteca nacional de España
• Biblioteca nacional de Portugal
• Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze
• Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma
• Bodleian Library: follow “digital library projects” (University of Oxford)
• Book Lovers: includes a page on rare books, history of the book, external manuscript sites, etc.; see also Book Lovers: Fine Books & Literature index page (antiquarian bookseller)
• British Library Digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
• Calendoscope (CNRS): re. Medieval liturgical calendars
• Cambridge University Library: digital library
• Camelot Project (University of Rochester, New York)
• CANTUS PLANUS: Data Pool for Research on Gregorian Chant(Institut für Musikwissenschaft, Universität Regensburg)
• CANTUS: Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant (University of Western Ontario)
• Cartulaire Blanc de Saint-Denis (École des chartes)
• Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts. Hosted by UCLA’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, this site was designed to enable users to find fully digitized manuscripts currently available on the web.
• Centre d’Études des Textes Médiévaux: Liens (Université Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne)
• **** Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA (links page)
• CivWeb: Internet Resources for Development of Western Civilization courses (Providence College), provides a fine page about illuminated MS, also including links to other sites
• Comptes de châtellenies: 13th c. Savoy
• **** Consortium: medieval resources on the web (Michigan State University)
• Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum
• CURSUS: Medieval Liturgical Texts (University of East Anglia)
• Debora B. Schwartz’s Web Resources and Online Readings (Cal Poly – resources for Medieval English & French literature and women’s studies)
• DIAMM: Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
• Dictionnaire des femmes de l’Ancienne France (Dictionary of Women in Medieval and Early Modern France, 5th-18th c.; c/o SIEFAR – Société Internationale pour l’Étude des Femmes de l’Ancien Régime)
• Digital Medievalist
• Digital Scriptorium (Columbia University)
• DScriptorium (Brigham Young University) – excellent links to manuscripts online, inc. Spalding.
• Early Modern Women Database (University of Maryland)
• e-codices: Virtuelle Handschriftenbibliothek der Schweiz (The goal of e-codices is to provide access to the medieval manuscripts of Switzerland through a virtual library. Complete digital reproductions of manuscripts are linked to scholarly descriptions in e-codices.)
• École Nationale des Chartes
• ETRC Textbase: Early Modern French Women Writers (University of Minnesota)
• The European Library: search all national catalogues, plus links to the libraries
• Fabula: la recherche en littérature (subscribe for updates of events, CFP, etc. Europe-wide + Switzerland)
• Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index (Haverford College)
• Galileo Project Catalog of the Scientific Community in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Rice University)
• Gallica: Bibliothèque Nationale de France: provides some useful, if basic, information – click on “découverte,” click on appropriate term in the main image, then follow the icons (”thèmes,” “chronologies” and “iconographies” are better).
• **** Globe-Gate: Medieval and Renaissance sections of Tennessee Bob’s Famous French Links (University of Tennessee)
• Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas at Austin)
• Hill Museum and Manuscript Library Visual Resources Online. In 1965, Saint John’s Abbey and University embarked on a mission of preserving manuscripts on microfilm and providing access to these resources to scholars. Over the years, other collections of art, rare books, photographs, etc., have been added to HMML’s collection.
• Historians of Early Modern France
• H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online
• Hortulus: Online Community for [Post-]Graduate Students (and Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies)
• IMS Study Group “Cantus Planus” (International Musicological Society)
• Index of Christian Art (Princeton University)
• International Center of Medieval Art
• **** Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University Centre for Medieval Studies / Paul Halsall, ORB sources editor)
• IRHT: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (CNRS)
• **** Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (University of Toronto Libraries)
• Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library at St Louis University: largest collection in the world of Vatican Library microfilms; some materials on line.
• Koniklijke Bibliotheek Nederland
• **** Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies (Georgetown University): Arts and Architecture – Manuscripts
• Latin American Travelogues digital collection (Brown University)
• Liber Floridus: les manuscrits médiévaux enluminés des bibliothèques de l’enseignement supérieur (CNRS coproduction)
• LIBWEB: Directory of Libraries on the Web: excellent, particularly for Italy
• Université de Liège manuscripts
• Manuscripta Mediaevalia (Cataloguing information on all mss in German libraries, and in some others.)
• Manuscriptorium (Manuscriptorium is a system for collecting and making accessible on the internet information on historical book resources, linked to a virtual library of digitised documents. The Manuscriptorium service is financed by the National Library of the Czech Republic)
• Mappamundi (Program in Medieval Studies, Princeton University)
• MATEO: Frauen des Humanismus (Universität Mannheim)
• Medieval Academic Discussion Groups: comprehensive list, maintained by Edwin Duncan (English, Towson University)
• The Medieval Bestiary and Chimaera: Bestiary blog (David Badke, University of Victoria)
• Medieval Logic and Philosophy (Paul Vincent Spade, Indiana University)
• Medieval Manuscripts Online: list of online resources, maintained by Siân Echart (English, UBC)
• Medieval Science Page (James McNelis, Wilmington College)
• Medieval Scribes (University of York)
• Medieval Technology Pages (Paul J. Gans, New York University)
• Medieval Travel Writing: (Adams Matthew Digital, c/o UBC Library; NB only accessible on-campus or via UBC myVPN)
• MEMO: Medieval Electronic Multimedia Organization
• **** Ménestrel: possibly the best and most up-to-date centralised resource for links to (mainly European) libraries and museums (the Sorbonne & Poitiers libraries, Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale – Poitiers/CNRS, Centre de recherches archéologiques et historiques anciennes et médiévales – Caen, Centre de recherches historiques CNRS/EHESS, Central European University – Budapest, École nationale des chartes, IRHT, Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris – CNRS/Université Paris 1-Sorbonne, Université Catholique de Louvain, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Université de Nancy 2)
• Meta-meta-medieval: concatenations – inc. blogography and filmography
• Monastic Matrix: a scholarly resource for the study of women’s religious communities from 400 to 1600 C.E. (University of Southern California)
• Monumenta Germaniae Historica
• Musée National du Moyen Âge (Cluny)
• Museo nacional del Prado
• Museu d’història de Catalunya
• Museu nacional d’art de Catalunya
• Musical Sources (9th–15th Centuries) in the Austrian National Library
• National Libraries of the World
• **** NetSerf: The Internet Connection for Medieval Resources (The Catholic University of America)
• Oral and Traditional Literature Online More of a comparative site
• **** ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies (College of Staten Island, City University of New York)
• ORBIS LATINUS (Graesse): Latin place-names; Dr. J. G. Th. Graesse (1909); c/o Columbia University
• Panurge: Actualités de la recherche autour de la Renaissance.
• Pecia: Ressources en médiévistique: Online community for Medievalists interested in medieval books and manuscripts, paleography, codicology, medieval libraries, &tc, everything to do with bookmaking in the Middle Ages …
• Perdita: Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Catalogue (AHRB and Nottingham Trent University, in conjunction with Warwick University)
• Performing Medieval Narrative Today: a video showcase (Evelyn Birge Vitz, New York University)
• Persée: Portail des revues en sciences humaines et sociales(Digitization and free public access for key French journals in the humanities, such as the Annales EHS et de la Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes)
• **** PIMS: Internexus: online resources (Pontifical Insitute of Mediaeval Studies)
• Popular Culture and the Middle Ages: including the Medieval Comics Project and Medieval Studies at the Movies
• Renaissance Lit: Happenings and cavorts in the Early Modern world
• Reti Medievali: Iniziative on line per gli studi medievistici (Università di Firenze, Napoli, Palermo, Venezia e Verona)
• **** RSA: Renaissance Society of America links database: from antiquity to ca. 1700.
• Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek
• St. Gall Monastery Plan (Prof. Patrick J. Geary, University of California, Los Angeles)
• Silva rhetoricae (Brigham Young University); a wonder, marvel and joy
• THELEME: Techniques pour l’Historien en Ligne (École des Chartes, Paris)
• Thesaurus musicarum italicarum (Universiteit Utrecht)
• Universidad complutense de Madrid – Biblioteca
• Les Très riches heures du Duc de Berry (c/o WebMuseum)
• Vatican Library; also here
• VirtualSalt: a handbook of rhetorical devices
• Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820 (Smith College)
• WebMuseum
• **** Wikipedia
• Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) – Medieval Studies

NB: under construction, in progress, and doubtless destined to be ever-expanding…

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Image sources: Wikimedia Commons.

Except for:
Second-last image: Carlos Miranda García. “Sistemas mnemónicos en el árbol del amor: una aproximación a la iconografía del Breviari d’Amor de Matfre Ermengaud (Escorial, ms. S.I. n.° 3)“. Cuadernos de arte e iconografia 6 (November 1993); Revistas Virtuales de la Fundación Universitaria Española.

Last image: Juliet O’Brien, “Women at Work–site under construction,” originally made for the now-defunct The Rose of the Romance (Princeton U, 2003); image derived from the cover of Madeline Pelner Cosman, Women at Work in Medieval Europe (New York: 1st ed., Facts on File, 2001; ISBN 9780816031252).