1. This project is both very large and fairly old
in Internet terms. At the time it was instigated (1996), it was not clear
that web sites [and the documents made available there] would often turn out to be
transient. As a result there is a process called "link rot" - which means that a "broken link" is a result of someone having taken down a web page. In some cases some websites have simply reorganized sub-directories without creating forwarding links. Since 2000,
very few links to external sites have been made. An effort is under way to remove bad
links.
2. All links to documents marked [at this
Site] should be working. [In the Internet Medieval Sourcebook,
but not the other associated sourcebooks, if there is no indication of the file's location then the text is hosted locally and
the link should be working.
3. Users may attempt to locate texts not currently available, or where the links have changed via The Internet Archive/Way Back Machine. Alternately, a search via Google may locate another site where the document is available. Sourcebook Contents
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is organized as three main index
pages, with a number of supplementary documents. Each individual section is still large -
an organizational goal here is to avoid incessant "clicking" to get between
pages and to information.
Selected Sources
This is the main entry to the resources here. It consists of an links
to an organized "index of selected and excerpted texts for teaching
purposes." For teachers who wish to refer students to the Sourcebook,
this page is the best starting point.
Full Text Sources
Full texts of medieval sources arranged according to type.
Saints' Lives
Devoted to Ancient, Medieval and Byzantine hagiographical sources.
Supplementary Documents
Help! A help page, on use of the Sourcebook, for research
questions, and on use of the Internet..
Search the Sourcebook
Search the full texts of all the Sourcebook texts physically located on Fordham
servers, at ORB, or selected ancient, late antique, and medieval text databases.
Sourcebook Accessions
A listing of primary sources in all parts of the site in order of accession. This
enables return users to determine what is new.
Selected Secondary Sources
A Section of the Sourcebook devoted to secondary articles on the subjects covered
by the source documents. Its arrangement mirrors that of the primary source pages.
Medieval Source Projects
A Section of the Sourcebook devoted to presentation at this site, or links to other
sites, of projects (longer papers, dissertations, theses) which are based on and/or
include editions of primary sources.
Medieval Legal History
A Section of the Sourcebook bringing together, and organizing, all the texts on the
history of law.
Livre des Sources Médiévales
A Section of the Sourcebook devoted to texts available in French. This section
begins life with an ample selection of over 150 etexts from the middle ages until the end
of the Ancien Regime. Most are in French, but some are in Latin, Langue d'oc and Langue
d'oil. Other texts will be added as they are submitted. Since I read French fluently, but
write it with less facility, I welcome collaboration on this part of the project.
Libro de fuentes medievales de Internet
A Section of the Sourcebook devoted to texts available in Spanish. There are only a
few available at the moment, but as they are submitted, they will be added. Since I am not
fluent in Spanish, I welcome collaboration on this part of the project.
Internet Sourcebook: Multimedia
Maps and Images
A Section of the Sourcebook providing a wide array of public domain, and
copy-permitted maps and images. [US Law]
Medieval Films
A thematically organized guide to over 200 medieval-themed films.
Medieval
Music
An extensive guide to the periodization of music from ancient times until the Baroque with
an annotated guide to recordings illustrating each period. [At UNF]
Internet History Sourcebooks Project:
Content Information
Courses Using the Medieval Sourcebook A list of courses and colleges using the Medieval
Sourcebook in its early years, with links to
those courses which are online. [Now too many courses use the site in
some way for the list to be fully maintained.]
The Honor Roll
The texts in the Sourcebook have come from a number of different sources, printed
and electronic. A number of people have helped by allowing use of their translations, or
by entering text. See for a roll of honor and thanks.
Newly Translated Texts
Although most texts in the Sourcebook are from 19th and early 20th century
translations, a significant number of texts have been newly translated by a number of
people for this web project. These texts are all copy permitted for non commercial use,
but are not public domain.
Desiderata
The Sourcebook now contains hundreds of texts, but there are still many more to be
added. This is a list of top priorities for full text source additions. If you are willing
to take on one of these texts, contact me.
Internet History Sourcebooks Project:
The Other Sourcebooks
Ancient History Sourcebook
A companion project to the Medieval Sourcebook - for teachers of Ancient history
civilization courses. It covers Pre-History, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome.
Modern History Sourcebook
A companion project to the Medieval Sourcebook - for teachers of Modern European history
and Modern Civilization courses.
The following Sourcebooks are primarily based on subsets of documents from the
three main chronologically arranged collections. They do contain a number of extra links
to other websites, and some additional texts.
HOW YOU CAN HELP: If you have any suggestions, or e-texts of translations of short passages you are
willing to have included in this Sourcebook, please contact me. If you teach a class and have
reading guides prepared for any of the material here, I would be happy to include it with
the various texts. Finally, If you come across typographical errors - and you will -
please also inform me. INTRODUCTION: MEDIEVAL SOURCES ON THE INTERNET Historians teaching medieval history surveys almost always want to combine a textbook,
a sourcebook, and additional readings. Textbooks, as an ever-evolving form, are probably
worth the cost, but sourcebooks are often unnecessarily expensive. Unlike some modern
history texts, the sources used for medieval history have been around a long time. Very
many were translated in the 19th century, and, as a rapid review of any commercial source
book will show, it is these 19th century translations which make up the bulk of the texts.
Indeed the genealogy of such texts is a minor area of possible historiographical research.
Although publishers need make no copyright payments to use these texts, there is no real
cost reduction, compared with sourcebooks for modern history surveys. Many of these
nineteenth-century texts are now available on the Internet, or are easily typed in to
e-text form.
GOAL: The goal here then has been to construct an Internet Medieval
Sourcebook from available public domain and copy-permitted texts. [A few short
extracts -abiding by the standard 300 word "fair use" rule may be posted.] The
problem with many of the Internet available texts is that they are too bulky for classroom
assignment. For instance, all of Pope Gregory I's letters are available, but in one 500
page document. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook then is in two
major parts. The first is made up of fairly
short classroom sized extracts, derived from public domain sources or copy-permitted
translations, the second is composed of the full documents, or WWW links to the full
documents.
DOCUMENT SIZE: The size of documents for teaching purposes is an issue. Some
commercial selections are composed of very small - paragraph long - snippets from many
sources [see for example Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantium]. Sometimes the documents
themselves are short, but for the most part the choice here has been for texts which would
be three or more printed pages in length. Such documents allow students to see a larger
context, and to escape from being spoon fed.
COVERAGE and SELECTION: After ten years of steady development, the Sourcebook,
while continuing to make available a wide range of texts which address elite governmental,
legal, religious and economic concerns, now also includes a large selection of texts on
women's and gender history, Islamic and Byzantine history, Jewish history, and social
history . Although initially the similarity of the contents of a book like Tierney's The Middle Ages and the collections of ninety years ago was striking, this is no longer
the case. In its early stages the the main principle of selection here was been availability of texts.
This long ago ceased to be the case as editorial desiderata deliberately
focused on
expanding the number of texts addressing non-elites. Since it is foreseen that there will be a variety of uses for this Sourcebook, the
principle of exclusion - necessary for printed material - does not operate. Although many
survey classes do not include much discussion of Byzantium and Islam, I have been eager to
include material which would be useful for classes which gave these two other successor
civilizations of Antiquity equal billing. This is especially the case for Byzantium,
which, apart from its own intrinsic interest, provides a parallel case for many western
developments.
TEXTS Since these texts come from a variety of printed materials, translators,
and sources, they will vary in quality. In particular there may be better modern
translations available [for instance for the works of Bede, Froissart, or Joinville.] More
modern translations offered with copy permission by modern translators have not been
checked, and in some cases could not be, by the compiler of these pages. All the texts
are, it seems, suitable for class purposes, but check printed material for any intended
publication usage. Caveat emptor!
USAGE: This Sourcebook is specifically designed for teachers to use in
teaching. There are several ways that this might be done:-
By pointing students to this web site.
By downloading the documents, and printing/Xeroxing them for distribution in course
packets or as class handouts.
By creating syllabi and course outlines at local websites with links to the documents
here.
[Please DO NOT download and incorporate the texts permanently into your local
network websites. The files are updated and corrected: multiple versions on the web makes
this difficult to do.]
All such projects are specifically allowed, permitted, and encouraged. Not all the
documents here are out of copyright, and I claim copyright on the the specific
electronic form, modernized versions of texts and any notes (this is not to
prevent you using the material freely, merely to prevent others using it commercially).What is asked is that reference to the source of the material is included,
and that no commercial use be made of the material. If you feel a need to pay up, do so by
contributing texts you have made available in e-text form.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Throughout this sourcebook, I have made special reference to
Patrick J. Geary, Readings in Medieval History, (Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview,1989, 1991), 834 pages,
and to
Brian Tierney, The Middle Ages, Volume I: Sources of Medieval History, 5th
ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), 415 pages
These books were used to orient me as to what is needed in a sourcebook, and what
problems there are with current books. Tierney and Geary are probably the most frequently
used sourcebooks in the US, although I have not checked sales figures, and so I have
indicated equivalents for all the documents in those books, and their availability in
e-text form. Tierney tends to reproduce the selection criteria, and often the texts, of
older sourcebooks and includes excerpts from medieval literary works. Geary focuses on
much longer excerpts of historical documents and historiography, tends to use more recent
[and hence less available for e-text] translations, and has virtually no literary texts.
Neither book provides much material on Byzantine and Islamic cultures, and in both women's
history is underrepresented and more recent studies of gender and sexuality avoided.
Selections within larger documents have been suggested by these and other published texts.
Please note that although I have been influenced by the selection criteria of these
authors, I have accessed the texts independently, have not always used the same
translations as they, and have added other texts, or longer selections, as I think useful.
Note also that the arrangement and selection of texts, while reflective of basic
chronology as in all such collections, is also independent of any published collection. The now out of copyright sources for documents include:
Coulton. C.G., ed, Life in the Middle Ages, (New York: Macmillan, c.1910)
Henderson, Earnest F., Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, (London:
George Bell and Sons, 1910)
Ogg, Frederic Austin, ed., A Source Book of Medieval History, (New York: 1907)
[Note that Ogg sometimes simplifies translations - he was directing his 500+ page book of
sources a students of the "better class" of secondary school!].
Robinson, James Harvey, ed., Readings in European History: Vol. I: (Boston: Ginn
and co., 1904)
Thatcher, Oliver J., and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval
History, (New York: Scribners, 1905)
University of Pennsylvania. Dept. of History: Translations and Reprints from the
Original Sources of European history, published for the Dept. of History of the
University of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897?-1907?].
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook participates in ORB, the Online Reference Book for
Medieval Studies.The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of Fordham University, New York. The Internet
Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at
the Fordham University Center
for Medieval Studies.The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the
Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in
providing web space and server support for the project. The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University.
Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not
the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.
