Online Medieval Sources Bibliography

An Annotated Bibliography of Printed and Online Primary Sources for the Middle Ages

Subject Headings

Below is a complete list of the subject headings in the database, as well as a description of what types of documents and information can be found under each subject heading. Items with a dark background are not in the subject heading list of the database, but are topics that you might want to search for: the right column explains how to find items that would be under these subject headings by using other fields.

Abbeys

Select Subject Heading: Monasticism or Clergy-Monks, Nuns, Friars or Record Type: Monastic Rule or Cartulary

Agriculture

Agricultural treatises, manorial accounts, herbaria, and documents relating to farming techniques, irrigation, gardens, and animal husbandry

Anglo-Saxons

Select Date: 500 - 1100 and Geopolitcal Region:England

Animal Husbandry

Select Subject Heading: Agriculture

Architecture and Buildings

Building accounts for cathedrals, churches, palaces; descriptions of buildings andbuilding techniques

Art

Lives of artists, treatises on iconography, manuals on artistic techniques, illuminated manuscripts

Asiatic Nomads: Huns, Mongols, etc.

Anything related to Asiatic nomads

Barbarians

Select Subject Heading: Early Germanic Peoples or Vikings or Asiatic Nomads

Black Death

Select Subject Heading: Plague and Disease and Date: after 1347

Byzantium

Anything related to the Byzantine Empire

Carolingians

Anything related to Charlemagne and his period (including whole dynasty), Charlemagne romances

Castles

Select Subject Heading: Architecture and Buildings or War - Military History

Catharism

Select Subject Heading: Heresy or Record Type: Inquisition

Celts

Select Geopolitical Region: British Isles

Chronicles

Select Subject Heading: Historiography or Record Type: Chronicles, Annals

Church

Select Subject Heading: Clergy - Monks, Nuns, Friars or Clergy - Priests, Bishops, Canons or Religion - Institutional Church or Piety

Church Fathers

Writings by or about Greek and Latin Fathers (up to and including Gregory the Great)

Classics / Humanism

Late medieval humanistic texts or writings about Classical authors/texts; late medieval texts following Classical models; compilations of Classical literature

Clergy - Anticlericalism

Documents and literature criticizing, satirizing, or condemning the clergy, calling for clerical reform, opposing the power or morality of the clergy or the Church

Clergy - Monks, Nuns, Friars

Monastic rules, necrologies, monastic chronicles, visitations, charters and cartularies, texts by or about monks and nuns

Clergy - Priests, Bishops, Canons

Texts by or about parish priests, bishops, canons

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Clothing

Select Subject Heading: Material Culture: Food, Clothing, Household

Conversion

Documents about the conversion of barbarians, Jews, or Muslims; missionary activity; sermons and theological works discussing the importance of conversion

Courtly Love

Select Subject Heading: Literature - Epics, Romance or War - Chivalry

Crafts

Select Subject Heading: Material Culture: Food, Clothing, Household or Economy - Crafts / Industry

Crusades

Crusading chronicles, records of Crusader States, preaching on Crusades, treatises on Crusades, documents about military orders

Diplomacy

Treaties, diplomatic correspondence, diplomats' memoirs

Drama

Select Record Type: Literature - Drama or Subject Heading Literature - Drama

Early Germanic Peoples: Goths, Franks

Anything relating to early Germanic peoples

Economy - Crafts / Industry

Includes all records regarding production and processing of raw materials (such as tin, silver, timber, hides) and their transformation into finished goods (such as pewter, houses, shoes)

Economy - Guilds / Labor

Documents about craft or merchant guilds as organizations, or documents specifically about work or wages. Includes sources on peasant labor too (such as court disputes on the Statute of Laborers in England)

Economy - Trade

Customs accounts, notarial records; fair records, market accounts

Education / Universities

University records, accounts for schooling, educational treatises, documents about cathedral schools or parish/village/town schools, descriptions of student life, documents relating to the history of universities

Family / Children

Letters (Pastons); personal memoirs (ricordi); family chronicles; genealogies, wills

Farms / Farming

Select Subject Heading: Agriculture

Fashion

Select Subject Heading: Material Culture: Food, Clothing, Household

Feudalism

Select Subject Heading: Peasants or Nobility/Gentry or War - Military History

Food

Select Subject Heading: Material Culture: Food, Clothing, Household

Franks

Select Subject Heading: Early Germanic Peoples: Goths, Franks

Goths

Select Subject Heading: Early Germanic Peoples: Goths, Franks

Government

Administrative records for villages, towns, nations, etc., including parliamentary proceedings and tax records

Grammar / Rhetoric

Treatises and allegorical works about grammar.

Guilds

Select Subject Heading: Economy - Guilds / Labor

Hagiography

Select Record Type:Hagiography

Heraldry

Select Subject Heading: War - Military History or Family/Children

Heresy

Documents relating to the Inquisition, trials for heresy, sermons and treatises about heresy, documents that define heretical ideas or define orthodox ideas specifically to counter heretical ideas; documents by or about people accused of heresy; includes Lollards, Cathars, Waldensians, etc.

Historiography

Chronicles, annals, memoirs, and any other historical writing

Hundred Years War

Select Subject Heading: War - Military History and Date: 1300-1450 and Geopolitical Region: England or France

Huns

Select Subject Heading: Asiatic Nomads: Huns, Mongols, etc.

Iconography

Select Subject Heading: Art

Inquisition

Select Subject Heading: Heresy or Record Type: Inquisition

Jews / Judaism

Anything by or about Jews and Judaism

Law - Canon

Church courts; synods and councils; church legislation (canons); theoretical works on canon law

Law - Crime

Court records, felonies, assault, theft

Law - Secular

Civil law: debt, minor trespasses, inheritance, contracts

Literature - Arthurian

Any literature and documents, including historiographical texts, relating to King Arthur or people associated with his legend (such as Merlin)

Literature - Comedy / Satire

Literature written with a humorous intent; literature that ridicules its subject with the intent of provoking change

Literature - Devotional

Devotional texts; Marian lyrics, plays, revelations, sermons

Literature - Drama

Texts of plays, household accounts for dramatic productions, descriptions of dramatic productions

Literature - Epics, Romance

Romances, courtly love literature, epics

Literature - Folklore, Legends

Fairy tales; myths; paganism

Literature - Other

All other literature

Lollardy

Select Subject Heading: Heresy

Magic / Witchcraft

Treatises about magic, trials of witches

Manors

Select Subject Heading: Agriculture or Nobility / Gentry

Manuscripts

Select Facsimile or Subject Heading: Art

Maritime

Sea laws; admiralty courts; overseas or coastal accounts; naval battles

Markets

Select Subject Heading: Economy - Trade

Marriage

Select Subject Heading: Family / Children or Women / Gender

Material Culture: Food, Clothing, Household

Documents relating to food, clothing, and other material possessions, such as inventories, sumptuary laws, banquets, wills

Medicine

Medical treatises, accounts of medical procedures, medical theories, treatment of plague

Merchants

Select Subject Heading: Economy - Trade or Economy - Guilds / Labor

Middle Class

Select Subject Heading: Economy - Trade or Nobility / Gentry

Military Orders

Anything relating to or discussing military orders such as Knights Templar, Hospitallers, or Teutonic knights.

Monasticism

Documents relating more to monastic life, monastic reform, the administration of monasteries, or the history of a particular monastery or monastic order, than to individual monks, nuns, or friars

Mongols

Select Subject Heading: Asiatic Nomads: Huns, Mongols, etc.

Music

Musical manuscripts, treatises about music, liturgical music

Muslims / Islam

Anything by or about Muslims or Islam

Nobility / Gentry

Letters, family chronicles, seigniorial estates, feudal records by or about the noble or upper middle classes

Norman Conquest

Select Subject Heading: War - Military History or Geopolitical Region: England and Dates: 1066-1250

Pagans / Paganism

Select Subject Heading: Heresy or Conversion or Early Germanic Peoples or Asiatic Nomads or Literature: Folklore, Legends

Papacy

Records about or by popes and papal institutions

Papal Schism / Avignon Papacy

Select Subject Heading: Papacy and Dates: 1378 - 1417

Peasants

Manorial and estate court rolls, account rolls, extents and surveys, literature about peasants, descriptions of peasant uprisings

Philosophy/Theology

Writings by philosophers and theologians

Philosophy - Aristotlelian

Texts exploring and expounding Aristotlelian themes and attempting to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with the Christian faith or more Platonic philosophical thought

Philosophy - Ethics / Moral Theology

Documents discussing how people should behave, what is sinful, and other aspects of ethics

Philosophy - Logic

Texts, usually philosophic, that discuss logic

Philosophy - Metaphysics

Texts focusing on metaphysical topics such as being itself, informed being, substance, form, existence, etc.

Philosophy - Platonic/ Neo-Platonic

Texts which follow, discuss or expand Platonic and neo-Plantonic themes, such as realist forms, pre-existence of the soul, memory, etc.

Philosophy - Political

Texts which discuss secular power, forms of government, and political philosophy, such as Dante's Monarchy

Piety

Documents generated out of pious intents, describing piety, or helping people live a pious life, such as liturgy, sermons, books of hours, etc.

Piety - Confession / Penance

Confessional manuals, theological works discussing the value of penance, literary and historical works that describe people doing penance, etc.

Piety - Lay

Confraternity records, devotional tracts, religious guild records, play cycles, and other documents that demonstrate or relate to the piety of laypeople

Piety - Mysticism

Writings by or about specific mystics, descriptions of mystical visions, treatises about mystical experiences

Plague and Disease

Black Death or other plagues, descriptions of diseases and the results of diseases, documents about treating or containing diseases

Political Thought

Treatises about how governments should function, mirrors for princes

Poverty / Charity

Sermons and theological works about poverty, anything dealing with monastic poverty, wills with charitable donations, account rolls with charitable donations, court records dealing with beggars and vagrants

Reconquista

Select Subject Heading: War - Military History or Muslims / Islam and Geopolitical Region: Spain

Recreation

Records dealing with games, tournaments, descriptions of recreational activities, building accounts for recreational spaces

Reform

Complaint literature and other calls for reform of the Church, secular government, or other institutions and ways of life

Religion - Institutional Church

Documents and literature about the Church, documents relating to Church administration

Revolt

Descriptions of revolts

Royalty / Monarchs

Royal chronicles, letters, memoirs; biographies; literature about kings and monarchs

Saints

Hagiography, miracle stories, anything else relating to saints

Saints - Cult / Relics

Documents relating to saints. cults, such as descriptions of festivities on saints. days, pilgrimages to shrines, sales of relics, and other manifestations of devotion to saints

Science/Technology

Treatises on astronomy, military technology, etc.

Science - Astronomy

Treatises on astronomy

Science - Mathematics

Treatises and texts on mathematics

Taxes

Select Subject Heading: Government

Templars

Select Subject Heading: Crusades or War - Military History

Theology - Christology

Texts that focus on person of Christ, the Incarnation, etc.

Theology - Ecclesiology

Texts which focus on the Church itself, its mission, structure, importance, authority

Theology - Eschatology

Texts which focus on the Eschaton, Last Judgement, Wedding Feast of the Lamb, Eternity

Theology - Heretical

Texts which promote heretical notions, speculations, or declaration (not texts about heretics or inquisitions)

Theology - History

Texts which investigate history from point of view of soteriology; universal histories focused on salvation history; theological speculations on history (such as in Bonaventure.s Brevoloquium), heptamerons

Theology - Mariology

Texts discussing the Immaculate Conception, or the life, importance, deeds, intercession, purity and/or role of Mary.

Theology - Moral/Ethics

Theological works that focus on moral issues or ethical dilemmas, including questions about vice and virtue, sin, and sexuality.

Theology - Sacramental

Texts listing and explaining the sacraments, including disputations on sacraments, or discussions of sacramental theology

Theology - Scriptural Exegesis

Texts which deal with scriptures, either guides to scriptural interpretation, the fourfold senses of Scripture, or scriptural commentary

Theology - Trinitarian

Texts explaining and discussing the Trinity, its quality as a Mystery, the three persons and/or their relationships

Towns / Cities

Borough/town records and other documents relating to town life or administration, descriptions of events in towns such as plays and processions, descriptions of towns or cities, histories of particular towns or cities

Travel / Pilgrimage

Exploration; travel accounts (including fiction); pilgrimage accounts

Vikings

Anything relating to Vikings, Viking raids

Visigoths

Select Subject Heading: Early Germanic Peoples: Goths, Franks

Waldensianism

Select Subject Heading: Heresyor Record Type: Inquisition

War - Chivalry

Chivalric romances, knightly codes of conduct, rules for chivalric orders

War - Military History

Documents about castles, battles, sieges, raids, military indentures, military orders, armor, knights as fighters, chronicles specifically about wars, such as that by Froissart or the crusade chronicles

Women / Gender

documents by or about women, works on women rulers, nuns (monastic rules), female saints lives, works about gender roles

Last Updated: September 24, 2008