Reference Books for Medieval Research Projects

            Up through the late twentieth century, a central feature of any academic library was its reference room, staffed by reference librarians and filled with dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, etc.  Institutes such as medieval studies centers also had their own reference rooms containing the major search tools of their specialties (these have tended to survive better).  Today computers offer access to search engines able to locate search terms quickly and conveniently. Libraries have downsized reference rooms,eliminating some types of reference books and banishing others to the stacks, filling the space gained with banks of computer terminals and new coffeee bars. 
            To some extent the decline of the reference room is justified. Information can be stored more compactly in electronic form. Some reference aids, especially serial bibliographies, are easier to maintain and update in electronic form. But old-style reference books, when well planned and edited, can still provide levels of quality control, convenience, and specialization not always matched by online resources.  Be aware that almost every specialization has its own reference books. The number of reference books is so great that scholars have facetiously championed the need for a Cambridge Guide to Cambridge Guides. If for a particular project you need research orientation, begin by imagining what kind of reference book you would like to have in hand and then go look for it--often it will actually exist. For medieval historians certain reference books remain useful (though some of these are now also available in electronic format).  Among the most useful are:

General Guides:

The Cambridge History of Christianity. 9 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006-2010.

The New Cambridge Medieval History, edited by Rosamond McKitterick (and other very scholarly editorial board members). 7 vols. Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press, 1995-2004.


Bibliographical Guides
:

L’Annee philologique.  86- vols.  Paris:  Les belles lettres, 1924-. The standard index to scholarly work on ancient Greece and Rome, an annual serial bibliography available both in print and in electronic subscription (through EBSCO). This is the basic serial bibliography for classical studies, produced in annual volumes.  There is an online version to which individuals can subscribe at a reasonable annual rate. The TTU Library has a disk with about ten yearss of material from 1995-, indexed as the DCB (Database of Classical Bibliography) and available in the stacks.

 

Medieval Warfare:  A Bibliographical Guide, edited by Everett U. Crosby. New York: Garland, 2001.

 

Medioevo Latino. 35- vols. Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull alto Medioevo, 1980-. An annual serial bibliography inventorying each year's scholarship on medieval Latin literature.  Even if you have not studied Italian, this is still a useful reference: historians are likely to be interested in the major section, "Autori e testi," where bibliographical entries are alphabetized under the names of authors and genres.  If you can locate an author, the entries themselves will appear in their original languages. The TTU Library has a printed version in the stacks; the Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino (SISMEL) offers an online version, bundled with other resources as part of Mirabile: Digital Archives for Medieval Culture.

 

Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique. 110- vols. (1900-). This journal published by the Université catholique de Louvain contains an annual serial bibliography on the Christian Church broadly defined.  Its organization is a little cumbersome: it separates the Church of the ancient world from the Church of the Middle Ages (ca. 500-ca.1500), and has otehr indiosu=yncies.  But once you learn how to use it it provides a gerat way to check up on eleciastical scholarship (note the author index at the end of each volume).

 


Indexes of Sources:

Chronicon: Medieval Narrative Sources: A Chronological Guide with Introductory Essays, edited by János M. Bak & Ivan Jurković.Turnhout : Brepols, 2013. 

Clavis Patrum Latinorum, edited by Eligius Dekkers.  3rd edition.  Corpus Christianorum Series Latina.  Turnhout: Brepols, 1995.  Treats Latin patristic writing, century by century, placing hagiographic works of known authorship under their authors and grouping anonymous works by century.  The text numbers as updated in this 3rd edition are keys for searches in the electronic CETEDOC Library of Latin Christian texts.

Clavis Patrum Graecorum, ed. Maurice Geerard. 5 vols. Turnhout:  Brepols, 1974-83.  Treats Greek patristic writings, century by century, placing hagiographical works of known authorship under their authors and grouping anonymous works by century.  Excellent listing of editions and evaluation of authorship and authenticity.  It has been cross-indexed in the BHL Novum Supplementum (pp. 913-14).

Repertorium Fontium Historiae Medii Aevi Primum ab Augusto Potthast Digestum, Nunc Cura Collegii Historicorum e Pluribus Nationibus Emendatum at Auctum [the "new Potthast"]. 11 vols.  Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 1962-2006. The first volume lists source collections; subsequent volumes are alphabetically arranged treatments of medieval authors and sources.


Encyclopedias:

Dictionary of the Middle Ages. 13 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982-89. Perhaps the best starting place for discovering what a topic is and whether there might be sufficient material in English for a monolingual student to write a research paper. To get full value from this reference, look up your subject in the index volume (vol. 13).

Lexikon des Mittelalters. 6- vols. Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1977-. The German equivalent of the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, with much more comprehensive bibliography (at least for items written in German) but very heavily weighted toward German subjects.

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Edited by Alexander P. Kazhdan. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. THE authoritative reference for things Byzantine.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Third edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1997. For matters ecclesiastical, the first place to start. Always insightful. Limited but solid bibliographical references.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, edited by Robert E. Bjork. 4 vols. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2010.


Specialized Reference Books (Some Examples):

The Annotated Index of Medieval Women, edited by Anne Nichols and Marty Williams. New York: Marcus Wiener Pub., 1992.

Bibliotheca Sanctorum.  Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII della Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1960-1970. 12 vols. and index.  Contains more than 20,000 articles in Italian on saints and other celebrated holy persons, listed alphabetically with BHL refs, editions, and bibliography.  The articles vary wildly in quality and sophistication.  Readers unfamiliar with Italian name forms should use the index, which cross-references the names used in other major Western languages.  Vol. 14 (Rome:  Città Nuova Editrice, 1987) is an appendix which remedies some omissions but which is largely devoted to current canonization processes. 

The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, edited by Ken Parry, David J. Melling, Dimitri Brady, Sidney H. Griffith, and John F. Healey.  Oxford:  Blackwell Publishers, 1999

The Cambridge History of Latin Monasticism. edited by Allison Beach and Isabella Cochelin. 2 vols. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2016?

Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry: Concepts and Terms, edited by Bradford B. Broughton. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Dizionario degli Instituti di perfezione. Edited by Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca.  10 vols.  Rome:  Edizioni Paoline, 1973-2003..  This is the most complete encyclopedia of religious orders and associated topics.

Encyclopedia of Monasticism, edited by William M. Johnston. 2 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000. Treats Eastern as well as Western Monasticism. Somewhat capricious in its coverage and article selection.

Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia, edited by Pam J. Crabtree. New York / London: Garland Publishing, Inc. 2001.

Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, edited by William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 932. New York: Garland Pub., 1995.

Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, edited by John M. Jeep. New York: Garland Pub., 2001.

Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, edited by Christopher Kleinhenz. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Medieval Jewish Civilization, edited by Norman Roth.  New York: Routledge, 2003.

The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, edited by Norris J. Lacy et al. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 931. New York : Garland Pub., 1991.

The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, edited by J. N. D. Kelly, revised by Michael J. Walsh. Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2010.

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, edited by David Hugh Farmer. 5th ed. rev. Oxford: Clarendon, 2011. 

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, edited by Clifford J. Rogers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.