PRIMARY SOURCES FOR PAPER WRITING

In writing a paper for this course, you should find and make use of several primary sources.  Consequently, as part of the process of selecting the topic, it is a wise precaution to investigate what primary source materials concerning the topic exists in translation.  If you cannot find anything, you had better choose another topic.  Here are some suggestions on how to go about finding such materials.
 

Web Sources

Start on the web with Google Searches related to your topic.  Access any of the items turned up by these searches that looks like it might contain primary documents.

Perhaps the most useful web site for primary sources is Fordham University's The Medieval Sourcebook:  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

This source is posted by Fordham University, one of America's leading centers for Medieval Studies.  It is part of Fordham's on-going Internet History Sourcebooks Project (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ ), begun in 1996 and continuing to expand up until to the present.  The sourcebook contains  many medieval documents.

Access the Wikipedia article on your subject (if there is one).  Scroll down to the end and look at the source list accompanying the article.  Such lists often contains primary sources concerning the subject.

Other useful websites for finding medieval primary sources include:

NetSERF:  The Internet Connection for Medieval Resources:  http://www.netserf.org/

A play on words, Netserf contains a user-friendly bibliography of medieval sources by subject.  Browsing through it may turn up useful primary documents.

TemplarHistory.Com:  http://www.templarhistory.com/

Although this is a commercial site and suffers from a superabundance of advertising, it is the best Templar site among many on the web.  (There is currently some indication that the advertising arm of the order may soon be split off to a separate site.)  For the most useful material, including a collection of documents dealing with the Templars, click through to the History section.

Tales from Froissart:  http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/froissart/tales.htm

Born in Hainault, a duchy in the Low Countries, Jean Froissart was the most important chronicler of the later Middle Ages.  In a life of travel, he encountered many of the people whose stories he would record, writing and rewriting a sweeping chronicle of late fourteenth century Europe, much of it devoted to warfare.  Steve Muhlberger of Nipissing University has made a number of sections of the chronicle available on the web, using for the purpose the standard nineteenth century, two volume translation by Thomas Johnes.

The English Calendar of Patent Rolls:  http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/patentrolls/

The printed Calendar of Patent Rolls, consisting of 49 volumes and covering the years 1216-1452,  has long been a major source for medievalists working in English history.  It contains a record of patents issued by the crown conferring all sorts of royal grants conferring property and titles, pardoning crime, protecting individuals in the performance of their duties or business, etc.  Quite a number of these patents shed light on military affairs in England.

 

Printed Sources

Primary Source Collections:

Start with the principal collections of medieval documents:

G. G. Coulton, Life in the Middle Ages (Four volumes in one) ("Golden Oldie"; still perhaps the best source collection on the Middle Ages)

Norton Downs (ed.), Basic Documents in Medieval History

Patrick J. Geary (ed.), Readings in Medieval History

Maryanne Kowaleski (ed.), Medieval Towns:  A Reader

James Harvey Robinson (ed.), Readings in European History, vol. 1

Barbara Rosenwein (ed.), Readings in the Middle Ages

James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, The Portable Medieval Reader

Brian Tierney (ed.), The Middle Ages, Volume I:  Sources of Medieval History

Look at the Anvil Series, a collection of short books  that cover a wide variety of historical topics, not a few of them medieval.  Half of each Anvil Series Reader consists of a text explaining the topic, usually written by a well-known historian.  The other half consists of selected documents. The list of medieval readers includes:

Norton Downs (ed.), Basic Documents in Medieval History

Howard Adelson, Medieval Commerce

Roland Bainton, Early Christianity

Roland Bainton, The Medieval Church

James A. Corbett, The Papacy

Stewart Easton and Helene Wieruszowski, The Era of Charlemagne

Hitti, Islam and the West

Mundy and Riesenberg, Medieval Town

Joseph Strayer, Feudalism

Wieruszowski, The Medieval University

Access the website for Penguin Books.  Penguin prints editions of numerous historical sources, including many from the Middle Age.