HIS 334: Medieval European Civilizations

Welcome

This research guide is for the history course, Medieval European Civilizations. Here, you should be able to find primary and secondary resources, some of which are sorted by the topical methodologies to which they relate. Your study habits do not need to be as dedicated as the schedule of a monk to be able to figure out how to use this resource to your advantage for your projects!

The Early, High and Late Middle Ages

The Avalon Project

The Avalon Project is a collection of sources by Yale Law School with materials of history, law, and diplomacy.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

CCEL includes classic works in Christianity in order to gather specific individual accounts of figures of Christian History.

EuroDocs

EuroDocs is a collection of materials grouped by region; it may have various different time periods to peruse outside of just the Middle Ages. 

Eyewitness to History

Eyewitness to History collects materials from eyewitness accounts of the lives of crusaders, monks, and many people.

Fordham Sourcebook

Fordham University has a collection of medieval sources in their Internet Sourcebook.

Hanover Historical

Hanover Historical Texts Collection includes digital versions of historical texts for use in history and humanities courses.

JSTOR

JSTOR contains both primary and secondary sources that can help with your research projects.

Gothic Marriage Chest JSTOR Creative Commons

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met has several collections of medieval art to select pieces from to use as primary sources.

*Make sure to filter for the date range related to your project.

Plaque with the Crucifixion, Atelier of Nardon Pénicaud (French, 1470–1542/43), Painted enamel, copper, French

Looking Further...

If you want to look outside of the resources provided for you, continue to examine the collections of museums and archives which are based in the areas of your study. Good luck!

Thrift Catalog

From the Thrift Library homepage, navigate to the "Catalog" button and search your topic through this helpful resource!

This can help you search through Thrift Library's physical catalog, where you can find the material books upstairs in the library, or journal articles and e-books available online. 

Databases

Also on the Thrift Library homepage, the "Databases A-Z" button will help you navigate through academic papers. The "Group By" selection allows users to group by category, where there is a subject section for History resources. 

Some of the most helpful for this course include:

Playlist

It may not be something that you can put in a research project, but this playlist can definitely be helpful for the research process!

Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide

Use the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide as an online resource to develop notes and bibliography for your research.

Turabian Quick Guide

The Turabian Quick Guide provides an online resource as a guide for using Chicago/Turabian style.

Reference Management

Thrift Library recommends using Zotero for reference management.

Once you save an article, book, webpage, etc. to Zotero it will generate citations in the style guide of your choice. It also does so much more! With Zotero, you can...

  • Save PDFs and Snapshots of your sources to folders in your library
  • Annotate PDFs (when you copy and paste text from an annotated file it will automatically add quotation marks and the author, date, and page number in a parenthetical citation.) 
  • Search your entire library
  • Generate bibliographies 

Zotero is a desktop app that also has a web library for when you need to access your library away from your primary computer. 

Zotero also offers browser connectors that enables users to save sources with a single click. 

More information about reference management as well as other available tools can be found in LibraryDIY under Citation Tools.

Using Zotero

Zotero is a citation guide which you can use to map your research project resources.  Below is a step-by-step photo guide to using Zotero to create a bibliographical citation. However, you can also use the Zotero Connector browser extension, and Zotero will automatically generate the citation for you! Just be sure to check for any errors.