HIS 111 - The Medieval World

Reference (print) | Reference (online) | Books | Magazines and newspapers | Web sites

This guide is intended to help the student become familiar with the library's resources that focus on the time period between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Black Death of 1348. It includes reference materials, overviews, monographs, magazine and newspaper sources, and internet sites. Please note these are just a few examples of the many resources available. For additional help, ask a librarian at any time.

Reference (print)

Arts & Humanities through the Eras: Medieval Europe – vol. 3 – R 700.9 A7927
The Crusades: An Encyclopedia – R 909.07 C9572
Dictionary of Medieval Civilization – R 909.07 D1312 d
Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry : People, Places, and Events – R 929.703 B8254 d
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life: The Medieval World – vol. 2 – R 390 G8166
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Medieval Civilization – R 940.1 G7285 i
Key Figures in Medieval Europe : An Encyclopedia – R 940.1 K443
Medieval England : An Encyclopedia – R 942 M4894
Medieval France : An Encyclopedia – R 944.003 M4892
Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine : An Encyclopedia – R 509.02 M4894
Renaissance and Reformation – R 940.21 R393

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Reference (online)

Ancient and Medieval History Online – Focusing on Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Ancient and Medieval History Online gives a balanced, global view of the world in ancient and medieval times. Thousands of entries on events, people, and primary source documents are hyperlinked and allow users a comprehensive and comparative view of the pre-modern world.

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Books/Monographs

The following books are non-reference sources that deal broadly with the subject of Medieval European history (sometimes referred to as overviews):

The Civilization of the Middle Ages – floor 2 – 940.1 C2324 c
Daily Life in the Middle Ages – floor 2 – 940.1 N5545 d
Europe in the High Middle Ages – floor 2 – 940.18 J8225 e
Medieval People – floor 2 – 940.1 P887 m, 1999
The Medieval Village – floor 2M – 307.72094 C8558 m 1989
The Medieval World: Europe, 1100-1350 – floor 2 – 940.17 H459 m

To find other relevant books, do a subject search using specific SUBJECT headings such as:

Europe -- History -- 476-1492
Civilization, Medieval
Social history -- Medieval, 500-1500
Middle Ages
Black Death -- History

For monographs, you can also put in names of specific people or events in a keyword search. Pay attention as well to other headings given to books you find on your topic. Also browse the shelf area where you find books on your subject.

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Magazines and Newspapers

Academic Search Premier – More than 4500 magazines and scholarly journals.

JSTOR – Full text of more than 750 scholarly journals.

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Web Sites

The web sites selected here are reliable, relevant sources for research on the emergence of European civilization between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Black Death of 1348:

The Decameron Web – Brown University – Designed to prompt investigation and discussion of the Decameron texts (stories from people escaping Florence at the time of the Plague).

Internet Medieval Sourcebook – The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is organized as three main index pages, with a number of supplementary documents. There is an index of selected and excerpted texts for teaching purposes, a help page on use of the Sourcebook for research questions, a section devoted to secondary articles, texts on the history of law, copy-permitted maps and images, a guide to medieval-themed films and music, and more.

Labyrinth: Medieval Resources – Georgetown University – Features free, organized access to electronic resources in medieval studies. Among its offerings are bibliographies, a searchable index, links to special topics, and full-text versions of medieval works. The Labyrinth's menus and links provide connections to databases, services, texts, and images on other servers.

The Online Medieval and Classical Library – Berkeley Digital Library – OMACL is a collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization. You may search all of the texts in this collection or browse by Title, Author, Genre, or Language.

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