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VALE - Virtual Academic Library Environment
Jim Niessen
World History Librarian
niessen@rci.rutgers.edu
April 1, 2008
Research Resources: Subject Research Guides: Medieval Studies:
Medieval Manuscripts

Art historians and literary scholars draw conclusions about the creative process from an examination of original manuscripts. Historians are typically more concerned with the meaning conveyed by an assemblage of organizational records, hence make greater use of archives and source collections compiled in the previous and following sections. If they must consult the originals, however, they can gain the requisite familiarity with the scripts used by record keepers by a consultation of manuscript facsimiles

Printed Manuscript Catalogs

[Note: The McDonnell Room is a seminar room for medieval studies on the second floor of Alexander Library. Outside of class time it is locked, but medieval studies students can borrow a key in exchange for their id card. This room has second copies of many books on medieval manuscripts, and Alex Stacks many manuscript catalogs for individual libraries, besides the works listed here.]

Handlist of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts : a list of manuscripts and manuscript fragments written or owned in England up to 1100 / by Helmut Gneuss.
Tempe, Ariz. : Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001. 188 p.
Alex Stacks Z6605.A56G58 2001

Latin manuscript books before 1600 : a list of the printed catalogues and unpublished inventories of extant collections / by Paul Oskar Kristeller. 4th rev. and enl. ed. / by Sigrid Krämer.
Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1993. xxxvi, 941 p.
Alex Stacks and McDonnell Room, Z6605.L3K75 1993

Medieval manuscripts in British libraries / by N.R. Ker.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969[-1992]. 4 vols.
Alex Reference Z6620.G7K4

The manuscript sources for the history of Irish civilization / edited by Richard J. Hayes.
Boston: G. K. Hall, 1965. 11 v.
Alex Reference Z2041 .D85

Census of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada / by Seymour de Ricci, with the assistance of W.J. Wilson.
New York : H.W. Wilson, 1935-40; Reprint, New York: Kraus, 1961. 3 v.
Alex Reference, Z6620.U5R51, and Music Reference [vols. 1 & 2 only] CB351.R53 1961.  

Census of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Supplement. / Originated by C. U. Faye, continued and edited by W. H. Bond.
New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1962. xvii, 626 p.
Alex Reference and Music Reference, Z6620.U5R1 suppl.

The manuscripts of early Norman England, (c. 1066-1130) / by Richard Gameson.
Oxford; New York : Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, c1999. xvii, 190 p., 24 p. of plates
Alex Stacks Z6601.G36 1999

Medieval and Renaissance manuscript books in the Library of Congress : a descriptive catalog / by Svato Schutzner.
Washington : The Library, 1988-
Alex Reference Z6621.U58M64 1988 v.1-2, Dana and Music v.1

Western European illuminated manuscripts of the 8th to the 16th centuries in the National Library of Russia, St Petersburg : France, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands / Tamara Voronova, Alexander [sic] Sterligov; [translation, Mireille Faure].
Bournemouth : Parkstone Press; St. Petersburg : Aurora, c1996. 374 p. : col. ill.
Alex Stacks ND2898.R88S35 1996

Manuscritos de autores medievales hispanos / Horacio Santiago-Otero.
Madrid : Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1987-
Alex Reference, Stacks Z6611.T3S26 1987 v.1

Los manuscritos aljamiado-moriscos de la Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia : (legado Pascual de Gayangos) / Alvaro Galmés de Fuentes.
Madrid : Real Academia de la Historia, 1998. 234 p. : facsims. (some col.)
Alex Reference Z6621.R34G39 1998

Manoscritti prodotti per exemplar e pecia conservati nelle biblioteche austriache : Admont, Graz, Innsbruck, Klosterneuburg, Kremsmünster, Lilienfeld, Linz, Melk, Salzburg, Schlägl, St. Florian, Vorau, Wien e Zwettl / Giovanna Murano.
Wien : Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003. 186 p., xx p. of plates : facsims.
Alex Stacks AS142.V31 Bd.702

Bibliothèques de manuscrits médiévaux en France : relevé des inventaires du VIIIe au XVIIIe siècle / établi par A.-M. Genevois, J.-F. Genest, A. Chalandon, avec la collaboration de M.-J. Beaud et A. Guillaumont.
Paris : Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique : Diffusion Presses du CNRS, 1987. xix, 388 p.
Alex Stacks Z723.B54 1987

A catalogue of the pre-1500 western manuscript books at the Newberry Library / Paul Saenger.
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1989. xxvii, 260 p., [40] p. of plates : ill. (some col.)
Alex, Art Stacks Z6621.N66S23 1989

Medieval libraries of Great Britain; a list of surviving books, Edition: 2d ed.
London, Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1964. xxxii, 424 p.
Alex Stacks Z723.K47 1964

Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, by N. R. Ker.
Oxford, Clarendon P., 1969-
Alex Reference Z6620.G7K4 v.1-4

Corpus of British medieval library catalogues.
London : British Library in association with the British Academy, 1990--.
Alex Reference Z723: various vols.  RU owns 5 of these and 8 more are on order

Census of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada / by Seymour de Ricci, with the assistance of W. J. Wilson.
New York : H. W. Wilson, 1935-40. 3 vols.
Alex Reference Z6620.U5R51 v.1-3, Music Reference CB351.R53 1961 v.1-2

Guide to medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the Huntington Library / by C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse and Sara S. Hodson; Virginia Rust; Herbert C. Schulz; Ephrem Compte.
San Marino, Calif. : The Library, 1989. 2 v. (lxiv, 886 p., [81] p. of plates)
Alex Stacks, McDonnell Z6621.H527H46 1989 v.1-2

Bibliotheca lexicologiae Medii Aevi / Florent A. Tremblay.
Lewiston, N.Y. : Edwin Mellen Press, 1988.
Alex Stacks Z7028.L47T74 1988 v.1-10

Iter Vaticanum Franciscanum : a description of some one hundred manuscripts of the Vaticanus Latinus collection / by Girard J. Etzkorn.
Leiden; New York : E.J. Brill, 1996. xi, 301 p.
Alex Reference Z6611.F73E89 1996

Latin manuscript books before 1600 : a list of the printed catalogues and unpublished inventories of extant collections / by Paul Oskar Kristeller. 4th rev. and enl. ed. / by Sigrid Krämer.
München : Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1993. xxxvi, 941 p.
Alex Stacks and McDonnell Z6605.L3K75 1993
Online in Iter [Rutgers Restricted]

Les catalogues de bibliothèques / par Albert Derolez.
Turnhout : Brepols, 1979. 71 p. Series: Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental; fasc. 31
Alex Stacks Z6203.T95 fasc.29/33

Electronic Manuscript Catalogs

The journal Scriptorium, "an international publication of mediaeval manuscripts studies"  (1946--) has freely available online tables of contents and a search engine for manuscripts, and all issues are also indexed in Periodicals Index Online.

D-Scriptorium
Gateway to manuscript images at Brigham Young University

Digital Scriptorium
Cooperative project based at Columbia University, currently providing 4,000 catalog records and 15,000 digitized images

Manuscripta Mediaevalia (Germany).
Records for over 60,000 manuscripts, many with linked images

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts (Netherlands)

Iter Italicum: accedunt alia itinera : a database of uncatalogued or  incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other libraries. Kristeller, Paul Oskar, 1905-1999
In: Iter [Rutgers Restricted] and Ref-Com (CD-ROM workstation) Z6611.H8K723 1997
Complete print set: Alex Stacks Z6611.H8K7 v.1-7

The Ambrosiana microfilm collection at the University of Notre Dame is described on its website and various printed catalogs listed there.

The manuscript catalogs of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France are available online as .pdf files.

The manuscript catalog of the British Library is also available online.  There are two search options:  an index search of record fields and a keyword search.

The Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University is described online and various printed catalogs.

Also online is the catalog of the Hill Monastic Library in Collegeville, Minnesota, contains more than 90,000  medieval manuscripts in microfilm or digital format.

PhiloBiblon: electronic bibliographies of Medieval Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish text. Version 2.0c.
Berkeley, CA : The Bancroft Library University of California, c1999.
Alex Ref-Com Z6601.A1P45 1999 [CD-ROM workstation]

Scientific and medical writings in Old and Middle English : an electronic reference / Linda Ehrsam Voigts and Patricia Deery Kurtz.
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2000.
Alex Stacks-COM Z6605.A56V65 2000

Manuscripts and Manuscript Facsimiles at Rutgers

Paleography study collection, [before 844]-1571 (bulk [12--]-1510). 20 items.
Special Collections/University Archives MSS MC 886
This is an artificial collection consisting chiefly of fragments (3 short documents, 1 quire, 15 single leaves and 1 partial leaf) from medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts. A variety of texts, languages and scripts are represented. Books of Hours (7 leaves), Bibles (3 leaves), Breviaries (1 leaf) and Graduals (1 leaf) are among the texts represented. The earliest item is a partial leaf (from St. Augustine's commentary on St. John) written not later than 844 A.D. in the scriptorium of archdeacon Pacificus at Verona.

The Rutgers collections also include a 15th-century Latin manuscript Antiphonary, consisting of 40 leaves of music.
Alex Special Collections, MSS, MC 1211.

Facsimile editions in print

Here are a few of the facsimile editions in the Rutgers collections:

The series Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile / Edited by B. Colgrave et. al.
Copenhagen:  Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1951- .  Some gaps.
Special Collections/University Archives and Alex Folio [various call numbers]

Great Domesday.
London : Alecto Historical Editions, 1986-1992. 6 cases.
Special Collections/University Archives, DA 190.D6913 1986 X-FOLIO2.
A facsimile of the 11th-century Domesday Book

Hildegard-Gebetbuch
Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1982
Music Stacks ND33804.B39H55.
Facsimile of an illuminated prayer book from the monastery of Hildegard of Bingen, dating from her lifetime (mid-12th century)

The hours of Mary of Burgundy : Codex Vindobonensis 1857.
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek / commentary by Eric Inglis.
Art Stacks, BX2080.A35M3 1995.
An example of a 15th-century Book of Hours, richly illuminated.

Specimina codicum latinorum Vaticanorum / collegerunt Franciscus Ehrle et Paulus Liebaert.
Berlin:  W. De Gruyter, 1968.
Alex Stacks Z114.E41 1932a FOLIO.
A specimen book of facsimiles illustrating the variety of Latin hands over a range of place and time, from the manuscripts of the Vatican.

The Canterbury tales : the new Ellesmere Chaucer facsimile (of Huntington Library MS EL 26 C 9) / by Geoffrey Chaucer; edited by Daniel Woodward and Martin Stevens.
Tokyo : Yushodo Co.; San Marino, Calif. : Huntington Library Press, 1995. 1 portfolio ([480] p. on 31 gatherings) : col. ill.
Special Collections/University Archives PR1866.W65 1995 XFOLIO

Medicina y farmacia de Federico II.
[Valencia : Ediciones Patrimonio, 2002] 460 pp. : col. ill.
Special Collections/University Archives R128.M33 2002
Florentine, 13th century; late Byzantine miniatures, multilingual.

Cynegética: Treatise on Hunting and Fishing
[Valencia : Ediciones Patrimonio]  140 pp.
Special Collections/University Archives in process
Byzantine Greek, 11th century.

La chanson de saint Alexis : facsimilé en couleurs du ms. de Hildesheim / publié avec introduction et bibliographie par Ulrich Mölk.
Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. 22 p. : col. ill.
Art Stacks PQ1424.A4M65 1997

Literary Manuscripts on CD-ROM

Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies CD-ROM series
Early Celestina electronic texts and concordances
The electronic texts and concordances of...
  Alfonso Fernández de Palencia's 1492 Spanish translation of Flavius Josephus "Guerra Judaica"
  Andalusian documents, 1324-1500
  Medieval Navarro-Aragonese manuscripts
  the Madison Corpus of early Spanish manuscripts and printings
  the prose works of Alfonso X, El Sabio
Madison, [Wis.] : Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1997-9.
Alex Stacks-COM [various call numbers]

The Piers Plowman electronic archive / William Langland
Vol. 1, Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS 201 (F)
Vol. 2, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.17 (W)
Vol. 3, Oxford, Oriel College, MS 79 (O)
Vol. 4, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 581 (S.C. 987) (L)
Cambridge, England : Published for The Medieval Academy of America and SEENET by Boydell & Brewer, 2000-4.
Alex Stacks-COM PR2015.L36P5 2000 v.1-4

Manuscript Collections near Rutgers

The Princeton University Library has a collection of several hundred medieval manuscripts, described on the Web page of its Manuscripts Division.

Corsair (Pierpont Morgan Library) in New York has an excellent collection of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. There is an online checklist for the exhibit Medieval Bestseller: The Book of Hours (1997-98) with links to catalog records and images for 98 books of hours. The Getty Museum recently had a different exhibit with nearly the same title. Even more manuscripts are described, with links to images, in Corsair, the Morgan's catalog.

Catalogue of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University / by Barbara A. Shailor.
Binghamton, N.Y.  : Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1984-1992.
Alex Z6621.B4213 1984 v.1-4, Art v.1-2;
available online within this database

The Free Library of Philadelphia has 255 codices and 2000 individual leaves of medieval and renaissance manuscripts.  This collection's main page links to an online tour with many page images and to a search engine.

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries boast a large collection of medieval manuscripts including the library of the Inquisition historian Henry Charles Lea (1825-1909).

Online Manuscript Facsimiles

Digital Scriptorium at Columbia University contains a substantial database of digitized manuscripts from a score of American university collections.

The Web site Early Manuscripts at Oxford University provides access to digital images of over 80 medieval manuscripts.

The images produced by the ongoing digitization project of the medieval library of the Abbey of St. Gallen in Switzerland are available online.

The medieval codices of the Diocese of Cologne are available online.

Roman de la Rose is an outstanding digital project based at Johns Hopkins University.

Here are three gateways to other digitized manuscripts online: the Medieval Manuscripts on the Web page of the Syracuse University Library, the Web page of the same title by Prof. Siân Echard of the University of British Columbia, and the Manuscripts page of the Labyrinth Web site at Georgetown University.

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