LibGuides: Medieval & Renaissance Studies: Articles

Key Databases

These databases deal primarily with articles that may be helpful to the medieval & Renaissance studies student. Mouse over the "i" button for more information on each database.

Acta Sanctorum The database contains the complete Acta sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes. It comprises the works published over a period of three hundred years by the societe de Bollandistes and includes materials on the lives of the saints from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the sixteenth century. The Acta Sanctorum Database contains the entire Acta Sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indices. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina reference numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.
Early English Books Online Contains full-text page images of of about 100,000 of the 1250,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection. Also includes a growing collection of searchable full text provided by the EEBO Text Creation Partnership.
English Drama 4,000 plays by 1,200 authors from the late thirteenth century to the early twentieth century (1280-1915).
Exeter medieval online Combines the internationally renowned print series "Exeter Medieval Texts" and "Studies and Exeter Studies in Medieval Europe" and makes them available online for the first time. Includes ebook collection with over 20,000 pages of international scholarship from "A Beowulf Handbook to Working" with "Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts." A broad overview of a variety of subjects relating to the history the Middle Ages including: literature, religious studies, society and culture, translation and contextualization of key texts, the history of the book, architecture, music and sound studies, visual arts, art history, archaeology and landscape history, the urban environment.
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index Indexes journal articles, book reviews, and essays about women, sexuality and gender in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, from 450 C.E. to 1500 C.E., with citations for Russia extended to 1613.
International Medieval Bibliography Online Indexes articles, notes, and similar literature on medieval subjects in journals, Festschriften, conference proceedings, and collected essays. Covers all aspects of medieval studies within the date range of 400 to 1500 for the entire continent of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa for the period before the Muslim conquest and parts of those areas subsequently controlled by Christian powers. Includes more than 300,000 articles published 1967- , all of which are fully classified by date, subject and location.
Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance For eBooks: Iter, University of Toronto Libraries : Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series & Iter : Gateway to the Middle Ages & Renaissance migrated to database "Scholars Portal Books: Iter"
Medieval Travel Writing Provides an extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing. The core is a collection of medieval manuscripts dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The chief focus is on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia. The collection also includes a number of important accounts of travels to or through the Holy Land although in this it makes no claims to full or even broad coverage: a separate collection, covering crusading and pilgrimage narratives, would be required for that. It features a number of medieval maps such as the famous ‘Beatus’ and ‘Psalter’ maps, individual manuscript illuminations, and some modern translations of key travel texts. It should become an indispensable source for scholars of medieval travel, geography, exploration, trade, literature, and the new field of medieval postcolonial studies.
The manuscripts are from the British Library; Bodleian Library; Bibliothèque nationale de France; Cambridge University Library; Trinity College, Cambridge; Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen; the Beinecke Library at Yale University and about 15 other Libraries and Archives.
Middle English Compendium A collection of resources for the study of Middle English including the Hyperbibliography of Middle English ("the most comprehensive single list of ME materials available in electronic form"), the Middle English Dictionary, a corpus of Middle English prose and verse, and related resources.
Patrologia Latina The Patrologia Latina Database is an electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855, and the four volumes of indexes published between 1862 and 1865. The Patrologia Latina comprises the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216. The database contains the complete Patrologia Latina, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes. Migne's column numbers, essential references for scholars, are included.
Early modern England: society, culture & everyday life, 1500-1700 This collection brings together documents and objects from seven different archives and libraries to offer insights into the lived experience in England from 1500-1700. The documentary evidence here can offer a range of perspectives from prominent families to 'ordinary' people in order to see how this pivotal epoch in English history was lived across societies and regions. Rather than dealing specifically with the great political and religious upheavals of these years, the project aims to look at the everyday happenings of people in different parts of England

General Databases

Multidisciplinary Databases

JSTOR Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added on an ongoing basis.
Academic Search Complete Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary, full-text database, with more than 6,100 full-text periodicals, primarly peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts fof more than 10,600 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings.. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in searchable PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided.
Humanities Full Text Brings full text (starting 1995) plus abstracts and bibliographic indexes (starting 1984) of noted scholarly sources in the humanities, as well as lesser known specialized magazines. The database indexes, abstracts and delivers the full text of feature articles, interviews, obituaries, bibliographies, original works of fiction, drama, and poetry, book reviews, and reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, operas, plays, radio and television programs.
Project Muse Full-text versions of peer-reviewed journals from many of the world's leading university presses and scholarly societies, as well as thousands of ebooks, with emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
ProQuest This resource includes citations and full text articles in academic & professional disciplines, e.g., business, economics, gender studies, health, literature, management, political science; as well as news and general interest items. Search multiple databases simultaneously or select individually from among ABI/INFORM (business); Accounting & tax; the American Medical Association; Dissertations; Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, Research Library, or major current and historical US newspapers (including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times, etc).

Subject Specific Databases

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine History of science and technology and allied historical fields. Articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews and dissertations in the history of science and technology and allied historical fields. It covers the contents of over 600 journals, and the partial contents of several hundred more.
Pascal and Francis archive
Free Access to Pascal and Francis is an archive of the PASCAL and FRANCIS bibliographic databases, produced by the Inist-CNRS between 1972 and 2015 and accessible with a server subscription until 2016. Eventually, the Francis and Pascal databases will bring together close to 23 million bibliographic references: FRANCIS covers strongly 15 keys disciplines in human and social sciences (HSS) with 2,6 million bibliographic references since 1972; PASCAL, for its part, gathers 20 million bibliographic references in the Sciences Technology and Medicine (STM) field since 1973.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Proved access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies.

Popular Journals

The journal of medieval and early modern studies The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies publishes articles informed by historical inquiry and alert to issues raised by contemporary theoretical debate. The journal fosters rigorous investigation of historiographical representations of European and western Asian cultural forms from late antiquity to the seventeenth century. Its topics include art, literature, theater, music, philosophy, theology, and history, and it embraces material objects as well as texts; women as well as men; merchants, workers, and audiences as well as patrons; Jews and Muslims as well as Christians.
Journal of medieval history Devoted to all aspects of the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. Encompasses research articles, as well as historiographical essays, ‘state of research’ studies, editions of short texts and review articles on all aspects of historical enquiry between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. The geographical scope of the Journal is Europe, broadly defined, from Iberia to the Urals, and from the Mediterranean littoral to Scandinavia and the North Atlantic. Most issues comprise around six articles. The Journal also publishes special issues and longer pieces of scholarship that stimulate exchange and debate.
Mediaevalia One of the first multidisciplinary journals in North America, Mediaevalia was founded in 1975 and continues to provide a forum for innovative scholarship across a variety of fields in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Published once annually, the journal remains committed to rigorous standards of peer review, and welcomes submissions from both established and junior scholars on all aspects of medieval and early Renaissance culture.
Mediaeval studies Mediaeval Studies is the annual journal published by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. The journal was established in 1939 and from the outset its purpose has been the publication of research on the Middle Ages by scholars throughout the world, particularly research involving unedited manuscript and archival material.
The medieval history journal he MHJ derives its distinctive profile from encompassing the entire medieval world in scope and its multi-disciplinary foci. For the MHJ, `Medieval History` signifies open chronological and thematic boundaries to honour historical plurality. Its frequent special issues investigating a particular theme across regions have provided a space for comparative and transcultural conversations within scholarship.
Medieval worlds medieval worlds provides a forum for comparative, interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Its aim is to overcome disciplinary boundaries, regional limits and national research traditions in Medieval Studies, to open up new spaces for discussion, and to help developing global perspectives. We focus on the period from c. 400 to 1500 CE but do not stick to rigid periodization.
Postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies is a discipline-spanning, peer-reviewed journal that brings the medieval and the modern into productive critical relation. The journal advances a present-minded approach to medieval studies, which inspires new critical investigations of the Middle Ages by examining contemporary events, issues, ideas, problems, objects, and studies.
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Each issue is organized around a theme that reaches between today and the distant-yet relevant medieval past. Coverage emphasizes the intersection of the contemporary and the medieval, including such subjects as the interpretation of emotion in facial expressions in medieval and modern times; sickness, healing and the past, present and future of medical humanities; the relationship of the medieval Staffordshire Hoard with contemporary conservation efforts, metal detectorists and more.
Quidditas Quidditas covers topics relating to the history, literature and art of Europe from the years 500 to 1700. From the Rocky Mountain Medieval & Renaissance Association
Renaissance quarterly The leading international and interdisciplinary journal of Renaissance studies, encouraging connections between different scholarly approaches to bring together material spanning the period from 1300 to 1650. The official journal of The Renaissance Society of America, the journal publishes international scholarship from diverse disciplines such as art history; architecture; book history; classical tradition; comparative literature; English, French, Germanic, Hispanic, and Italian literature; Hebraica; history; humanism; legal and political thought; religion; medicine and science; paleography and manuscript tradition; musicology; and many, many more.
Speculum Speculum, published quarterly since 1926, was the first scholarly journal in North America devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages. It is open to contributions in all fields studying the Middle Ages, a period ranging from approximately 500 to 1500. European, Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew, and Slavic studies are included.
Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion Traditio is an international journal, published annually and dedicated to the study of ancient and medieval history, thought, and religion. Articles have treated history, literature, philosophy, patristics, philology, theology, and history of art. The periods covered are antiquity, early Christianity, and the Middle Ages, up to A.D. 1500.