Manuscripts
Primary Sources
- Medieval Worlds : A Sourcebook Complete with introductions, full commentary, glossary, and a guide to further reading, Medieval Worlds is a comprehensive sourcebook for the study of Western Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of documents, from chronicles, legal, state, and church documents, to biographies, poems, and letters from all over Europe, the authors expertly illustrate to the reader the unity - and complexity - of the medieval world. Amongst many more, central issues discussed include: the diverse world of monasteries the Papacy the Crusades women the roles of the town and countryside.
- Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages Many more documents survive from the early Middle Ages than from the Roman Empire. Although ecclesiastical archives may account for the dramatic increase in the number of surviving documents, this new investigation reveals the scale and spread of documentary culture beyond the Church. The contributors explore the nature of the surviving documentation without preconceptions to show that we cannot infer changing documentary practices from patterns of survival. Throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages - from North Africa, Egypt, Italy, Francia and Spain to Anglo-Saxon England - people at all social levels, whether laity or clergy, landowners or tenants, farmers or royal functionaries, needed, used and kept documents. The story of documentary culture in the early medieval world emerges not as one of its capture by the Church, but rather of a response adopted by those who needed documents, as they reacted to a changing legal, social and institutional landscape.
- Manchester Medieval Sources Online This link opens in a new window Manchester Medieval Sources Online contains hundreds of original medieval history documents compiled for the teaching and study of history. Includes both translations of source documents and thematic volumes. Provides access to the Medievalportal, which provides a gateway to other medieval material on the Internet.
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