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
Astrology
Select Subject Heading:
Science / Technology
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
Chivalry
Select Subject Heading:
War - Chivalry
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
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
Select Subject Heading:
War - Military History
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
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 - 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.
Taxes
Select Subject Heading:
Government
Templars
Select Subject Heading:
Crusades or War - Military History
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
