Group items tagged

"Major Document Collections"

"The idea that Medieval people drank beer or wine to avoid drinking bad water is so established that even some very serious scholars see no reason to document or defend it; they simply repeat it as a settled truth. In fact, if no one ever documents the idea, it is for a very simple reason: it's not true."

Major setbacks occurred at the end of the thirteenth century and continued into the fourteenth, when population expansion and declining crop yields coincided with a devastating and widespread plague, the Black Death (1348-1349). This had a major impact on population numbers-which dramatically declined-and on both society and economy. Immediately following an economic crisis, a period of crop failure, and an intensification of criminal activity (which may, perhaps, have been linked to fluctuations in food prices), the plague was devastating in its effects, and forms a turning point in the history of medieval England. Nor was the Black Death an isolated event; further pestilence struck in the 1360s, accentuating the problems. Read more: Medieval Britain - Documentation, Norman Period, Feudal Period, Economic Recovery, Cathedrals, Churches, and Monasteries, Impact of Protestantism - England, Castles, Century, Period, Norman, and Built - JRank Articles http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/5958/Medieval-Britain.html#ixzz1Z3mRCdHa

Primary materials. Primarily, freely-available online texts, in the broadest sense of WRITTEN THINGS: * documents, manuscripts, printed books, music, and images; * transcriptions, facsimiles, editions, and translations; * hyperprojects that also come under MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE HYPERPROJECTS: digital humanities, electronic, hypertext projects; featuring encoded or marked-up text, relational or searchable databases, … * digital catalogues (especially of manuscripts).

Medieval Documents : 400 - 1399

The following are early church fathers and apologists of the first and second centuries. The first eight or nine documents are also known as the Apostolic Fathers. The writers known as the church fathers represent the ancient orthodox church as opposed to other elements of ancient Christianity such as Gnosticism. These are the church fathers and apologists that can be read on the Early Christian Writings web site.

Europe in the first half of the 14th Century seemed to be preparing itself for significant changes. Cities grew in importance, though most of the population was still rural. Population increases had led to overuse of the available land. Poor harvests-also due to cooler, wetter weather-led to famines. The serf system was being undermined. Centralized political authority was becoming more powerful. Then the Black Death cut a path-both literal and figurative-through the middle of the 14th Century. The disease was caused by the bubonic plague, which was spread by rats, whose fleas carried the plague bacilli from the East along trade routes until it penetrated almost all of Europe, killing at least one out of every three people. Such a radical alteration in population in any place, at any time, would likely set off dramatic changes in society. What happened in a Europe already beginning to transform itself? In this lesson, students analyze maps, firsthand accounts, and archival documents to trace the path and aftermath of the Black Death.

Art has been a medium through which people have not only documented, but also shaped history-both past and future. Periodically, individuals, groups, and societies have also drawn on or appropriated artistic forms of the past to make statements in and about the present. Art can commemorate existence, achievements, and failures, and it can be used to record and create communal as well as personal memories.

THE TREASURY The Winchester Pipe Rolls, the annual accounts of the bishop's extensive estates, and the bishop's money were once stored at the palace gatehouse. The bishops derived their wealth from vast landholdings, one of the richest estates of medieval England. The yearly income and expenditure on the estates was recorded in great detail in the Pipe Rolls, an astonishing surviving series of documents covering the years from 1208-9 until 1710-11.

links to text of English Common Law documents

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index covers journal articles, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages. Because of the explosion of research in Women's Studies during the past two decades, scholars and students interested in women during the Middle Ages find an ever-growing flood of publications.

"EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History Selected Transcriptions, Facsimiles and Translations"

"Resources for Medieval Studies Sponsored by Georgetown University"

"The Online Medieval and Classical Library (OMACL) is a collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization."

Monarchs and Monasteries: Knowledge and Power in Medieval France