LibGuides: * Medieval Studies: Book History & Palaeography

Palaeography & Codicology

Cappelli Online (searchable)
This crowdsourced searchable version of Cappelli is created and maintained by Ad fontes University of Zurich).
Islamic Manuscript Basics
This site holds basic information and resources relating to the study of Islamic manuscripts. It includes an introduction to bindings, substrates, layout, scripts, and decoration, along with exercises, glossary, and references.

Online Resources

Dictionnaire des abréviations françaises

Interactive Album of Mediaeval Palaeography

The UK National Archives Palaeography: a practical online tutorial

Late Medieval English Scribes

Cappelli's Dizionario delle Abbreviature online (scanned images, not searchable)

InScribe: an online course on Palaeography and Manuscript Studies

DigiPal

Online resources for early modern English paleography (list compiled by The Folger Library)

Italian Paleography tutorials and resources (The Newberry Library)

French Renaissance Paleography tutorials and resources (The Newberry Library)

Early Modern Spanish Paleography Tool (CUNY)

Print Classics in the Field

Latin Palaeography by Bernhard Bischoff
Call Number: Robbins Z114 .B5713 1990
A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity To 1600 by Michelle P. Brown
Call Number: Robbins Z113 .B76 1990
The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books by Albert Derolez; David Ganz (Contribution by); Tessa Webber (Contribution by)
Call Number: Robbins Z106.5.E85 D47 2003
ISBN: 0521803152
History of Illuminated Manuscript by Christopher De Hamel
Call Number: Robbins Oversize ND2900 .D36 1994
Guide to Scripts Used in English Writings up To 1500 by Jane Roberts
Call Number: Robbins Z115.E5 R634 2015
Introduction to Manuscript Studies by Raymond Clemens; Timothy Graham
Call Number: Robbins Z105 .C58 2007

Manuscripts @ Rush Rhees

Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation holds a diverse collection of medieval and early modern manuscripts available for teaching and research. Access the finding aid here!

Glossaries

Codicologia
A multilingual glossary of codicological terms, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Arabic.
Language of Bindings
The Language of Bindings Thesaurus (LoB) is a thesaurus of bookbinding terms for book structures dating from the ninth to the nineteenth century.
Kneep en Binding
Book history glossary from the National Library of the Netherlands.
Binding Evidence
A thesaurus for use in rare book and special collections cataloguing, from RBMS.

Digital Collections

General

Medieval Manuscripts on the Web: quick links to various digitization projects

DMMmaps (Digitized Medieval Manuscripts)

Digital Scriptorium

Early English Books Online

Islamic Manuscripts

Individual Institutions

Parker Library on the Web

British Library Digitized Manuscripts

British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts

Early Manuscripts at Oxford University

Bodleian Library Western Manuscripts to c.1500 (selections)

LUNA (ARTstor & Bodleian Library illuminated manuscript images)

Scriptorium (Cambridge Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online)

The Morgan Library Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts

University of Pennsylvania (Penn in Hand)

Harvard University (Digital Medieval Manuscripts at Houghton Library)

Yale University (Beinecke Digital Collections)

Gallica (Bibliotheque nationale de France Digital Collections)

Mandragore (BnF Digital Catalogue of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts)

Databases

Manuscripts

Pinakes
Database of Byzantine manuscripts, including bibliography.
Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts
The SDBM continuously aggregates and updates observations of pre-modern manuscripts drawn from over 12,000 auction and sales catalogs, inventories, catalogs from institutional and private collections, and other sources that document sales and locations of these books from around the world.
Manus Online
Database of Italian manuscripts.
The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 - 1220
This Project's objectives are to provide the first full and accurate records of the manuscripts, especially those containing literary materials written principally in English from c. 1060 to 1220. It includes essays on the cultural contexts of English Manuscripts during this time period, and a catalogue of manuscripts across repositories.
Center for Håndskriftstudier i Danmark
A private research institute for the study of illuminated manuscripts in Danish collections, particularly useful for the study of books of hours.

Bookbindings

Biblioteca Riccardiana (Florence), Legature
Databases of bookbindings in the collection.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Base des reliures numérisées
Database of BnF bookbindings.
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Database of blind-tooled bindings (12th-18th c.)
Bookbindings on Iincunables. The Scott Husby Database at Princeton University Library.
Database of incunable bookbindings at North American institutions.
British Library Database of Bookbindings
Einbanddatenbank
Database of Germanic bookbinding tools.

The Book Trade

British Book Trade Index
Scottish Book Trade Index
Exter Working Papers in Book History
Biographical and bibliographical information on the book trades.
University of Manchester, First Impressions

Provenance

Books of Duchesses
Books of Duchesses collects, organizes, and presents data related to late-medieval laywomen and their books. Through an interactive map of Europe, users are able to visualize networks of manuscripts, texts, and readers and explore the libraries and peregrinations of woman book owners.
Owners of Incunabula
CERL database, which gathers biographical information on former and present owners, personal and institutional.
Index Possessorum Incunabulorum, Paul Needham
IPI contains some 32,000 entries of personal names, institutional names, monograms, and arms pertaining to the ownership of incunabula. They were extracted by Paul Needham from some 200 published catalogues of incunabula with provenance information, augmented with information from his personal research.

Watermarks and Printers' Devices

Archive of Papers and Watermarks in Greek Manuscripts
Piccard Online
Online version of Piccard's repertoire of watermarks.
Printers' Devices
University of Barcelona database of printers' devices.
Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke
National Library of Berlin database of printers' devices.