Primary Sources - Medieval / Renaissance - English and Irish History - Research Guides at The Claremont Colleges Library

Primary Resources in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Manchester Medieval Sources This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Find primary sources translated into English on many aspects of medieval European life, events, and culture, many with accompanying scholarly commentary.
Content type: Primary sources, books, bibliographies
Coverage dates: 600s-1500s
Extensive bibliographies available for most content. Metrics available for seeing total views and downloads of content.
Language: English
Keywords: Manchesterhive
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
Why search here? A great place to find primary sources from the Middle Ages in this collection of medieval manuscripts from travelers (such as Marco Polo and John Madeville) describing travel and places visited, real and imaginary.
Content type: Primary sources
Coverage dates: 1200-1500s
Includes a number of medieval maps, manuscript illuminations, and some modern translations of key travel texts. Browse by traveler to see a brief biography and a list of relevant documents.
Language: English, Latin, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish
Keywords: AM Explorer

The International Medieval Sourcebook
a free website, has excerpts from older English translations. It is a good place to start for names and sources, for which there may be better translations.
The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies
provides a thorough listing of detailed resources and includes a search query box with a drop down menu to limit by categories, subcategories and types of materials.
TEAMS Middle English Texts
is a free site from The Medieval Text Institute and The University of Rochester.

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
A major place to go for full text sources, many from the 19th Century. Over 14.6 million volumes, many full text, many from the past, many in other languages. Log in separately from your Claremont Institution.
HathiTrust is a collective of academic and research libraries that digitizes materials, whether they are in-copyright or the public domain, for the purpose of preservation. Eligible students with a print disability can request a copy of any book in the collection, regardless of copyright status.
Language: English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc.
Keywords: Hathi Trust

Primary Sources in Library Catalogs

Primary sources of all types can also be found in our regular, circulating books, in Special Collections, and beyond. Here are few ways to find primary texts and sources by using Library Search.

1. Use the author search to find books we have by a particular author, politician, journalist or another type of historical witness

2. Do an advanced keyword search in The Library Search and then limit by publication year under “limit your search”) (note: you can also limit by language and many other ways)

3. . Do an advanced keyword in Library Search and then limit to the word "sources" in the subject field (by using the dropdown menu), for example:

"early modern and England and women" in the keyword field

"sources" in the subject field.

(this brings us the Library of Congress Subject subheading “sources” which is sometimes used to designate primary source collections of different kinds — as in

Monastic and religious life England History Middle Ages, 600-1500 Sources.

Special Collections

Special Collections is the Library’s principal repository for print and manuscript primary sources. The collections number nearly 200,000 volumes and more than 11,000 linear feet of a diverse array of literary and historical manuscripts, personal papers, and college archives that span more than 900 years of human history. The collections are available for research, teaching, and study in person, and, increasingly, digitally in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library.

Explore collections on the Special Collections website.
Request materials using your Special Collections Account.
Make an appointment to view your requested materials.

Visit the Special Collections Access Guide for help discovering and requesting Special Collections materials and contact Special Collections with questions.

Honnold British Document Paper Collection

Honnold/Mudd has a paper collection of British documents that includes Parliamentary Papers, State Papers, the Royal Manuscript Collection and More. This collection has not been cataloged and is somewhat hidden, just east of the multi-tier stack on the first floor of the Mudd side. An appointment with the history subject specialist is recommended for first-time navigators of this information.