Manuscript repertories

On this web page I offer an overview of repertories for (medieval) manuscripts. As with all similar overviews it is easy to overlook relevant matters. The focus here is on three repertory genres: for several countries, for individual countries and specific genres, languages and/or periods. Alerts concerning broken links and omissions are welcome! For some subjects very specific repertories exist, in particular for music, biblical studies and theology; on purpose and for clarity’s sake I have not included them here, except for some general repertories for music. Repertories for legal manuscripts are mentioned on the respective pages of this website.

This overview builds on earlier similar overviews by the SIEPM and a list by Klaus Graf at Archivalia, and also on the rich information about manuscript catalogues created at the Universität Kassel, in particular in the section Special Interests with a rubric Thematische Sammlungen. The CERL consortium, too, offer a fine overview of repertories and related websites (PDF).

Projects for manuscript and charter fragments can be found in an overview at my blog Glossae – Middeleeuwse juridische handschriften in beeld, including references to other relevant overviews and to some digitized exhibition catalogues for such fragments.

General repertories

  • Digitized Medieval Manuscripts (DMMapp) – an overview of digital libraries and their holdings for medieval manuscripts
  • Donne e cultura scritta nel Medioevo, Antonio Cartelli and Marco Palma –a list and a an Excel sheet with manuscripts and texts written by and/or copied by medieval women
  • Portail Biblissima, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (IRHT), Paris-Orleans – interface French and English
  • Earlier Latin Manuscripts, National University of Ireland, Galway – a database for manuscripts written until 800, based on E.A. Lowe’s Codices Latini Antiquiores
  • Hill Monastic Manuscripts Library (HMML), Collegeville, MN – a portal site with as its original core a repertory for many thousand manuscripts in Spain and Austria; in many cases the HMML created microfilms
  • Illuminated Manuscripts, Laia Paleo Porta – a portal site around this manuscript genre with many links
  • Manuscripta Mediaevalia – a repertory for medieval manuscripts in Germany with access to digitized catalogues, decommisioned in mid-December 2023 – the subdomain with manuscript catalogues and links is still active
  • Mapping Manuscript Migrations – an international project to trace the moves and transmission of manuscripts; earlier on a database was developed focusing on the migration of the Phillipps Manuscripts (Toby Burrows)
  • MEDIUM: Répertoire des manuscrits reproduits ou recensés, IRHT – a repertory for the manuscripts studied or even microfilmed by the IRHT, in December 2023 integrated with the former Bibliothèque Virtuelle des Manuscrits Médiévaux into ARCA
  • MIRABILE: Archivio digitale della cultura medievale, SISMEL – a portal with bibliographical information and in the section DB Mediolatino largely free access to a number of databases for manuscript research, including some repertories; other sections contain repertories for the Romance languages and hagiography; interface Italian and English
  • Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Philadelphia, PA – a repertory with information on sales and auctions for some 14,000 medieval and later manuscripts

Databases of Early Latin Manuscripts (DELM) mentions a number of relevant databases and research projects for (early) medieval manuscripts with Latin texts.

National repertories

Australia

Austria

  • Manuscripta.at, Mittelalterliche Handschriften in Österreich – with also information about manuscripts in North Italy and Slovenia

Belgium

  • CICweb – an online repertory for medieval manuscripts held by institutions in the province Wallonie and the region Brussels; interface in four languages
  • Medieval Manuscripts in Flemish Collections (MMFC), Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheken – a project with a repertory of manuscripts in a number of Flemish libraries

Finland

  • Codices Fennici – a repertory for medieval and Early Modern manuscripts; interface Finnish and English

France

  • Calames – a database for manuscripts held by a number of French universities and other research institutions, accompanied by a blog
  • Catalogue collectif de France (CCFr ) – the Base Patrimoine of this meta-catalogue can be searched for manuscripts; note also the searchable version of the volumes of the Catalogue Général des Manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France (CGM) in the section Manuscrits et archives
  • CMD-F, IRHT – a database version of the volumes for France of the Catalogue des manuscrits datés

Germany

  • Handschriftenportal – a new portal site with a repertory for manuscripts in German collections; interface German and English

Italy

Netherlands

  • Medieval Manuscipts in Dutch Collections (MMDC) – a website of the Royal Libary, The Hague, with in its database information about some 8,000 medieval manuscripts in Dutch holdings; note also the palaeographical information, bibliographies and even the relevant volumes of the Catalogue des manuscrits datés; search interface English
  • e-Codices NL – the pilot with three libratries for the successor to the MMDC portal, enlarged with digitized manuscripts; interface Dutch and English

Poland

  • Manuscripta.pl – a repertory for medieval manuscripts in Polish holdings; interface Polish and English

Sweden

  • manuscripta.se: A Digital Catalogue of Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts in Sweden – a repertory with many digitized manuscripts

Switzerland

  • e-Codices, Université de Fribourg – a portal and repertory for studying (digitized) medieval manuscripts in Swiss holdings; interface in four languages
  • e-manuscripta – a portal for manuscripts and fragments held at ten Swiss libraries; multilingual interface
  • Mittelalterliche Handschriften in der Schweiz – a third repertory; interface German and French

United Kingdom

United States of America

  • National Union Catalogue of Manuscripts Collections (NUCMC), Library of Congress – a site for finding manuscript collections – and also archival records – in many American holdings
  • Lisa Fagin Davis and Melissa Conway, Directory of Institutions in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings (version 2015) – online (PDF), Bibliographical Society of America and University of Chicago Press

Medieval genres and disciplines

– General repertories

  • Jordanus, Menso Folkerts, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich – a repertory for medieval scientific manuscripts, focusing on mathematics, physics, astronomy and astrology; interface English
  • Scientific Manuscripts in Latin and Old and Middle English – database versions of the repertories by Thorndyke and Kibre (TK) and the Voigts-Kurtz (VK)
  • eTK/eVK2, IndexCat, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD – a second searchable database for the TK and VK repertories
  • Luxury Bound – A corpus of illustrated manuscripts in the Netherlands (Low Countries) (1400-1550), Hanno Wijsman, IRHT – a repertory for especially illuminated manuscripts from the Burgundian period

– Repertories for a single discipline

Alchemy

Hagiography

Heraldry

  • Medieval armorials, Steen Clemmensen – with deatiled inventories of both armorial manuscripts and heraldic blasons

Historiography

  • Geschichtsquellen des deutschen Mittelalters, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften – with information about manuscripts, studies and editions for sources for German medieval history in a wide sense
  • Repertorium chronicarum, Mississippi State University – a repertory of chronicles in medieval Latin
  • Narrative Sources: The Narrative Sources from the Medieval Low Countries – a repertory with information about relevant manuscripts, studies and editions; interface Dutch, English and French

Literature

  • Arthurian Fiction in Medieval Europe, Universiteit Utrecht, Huygens Institute, Amsterdam, CLARIN and NWO – a repertory for manuscripts and fragments of texts about and around the mythical king Arthur; search interface English

Music

Philosophy

– Repertories for languages

Multiple languages

  • Philobiblon, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley – a portal and repertory for manuscripts with texts in medieval Catalan, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish
  • JONAS: Répertoire des textes et des manuscrits médiévaux d’oc et d’oïl, IRHT – a repertory for manuscripts with texts in Old French, Middle French and Occitan, with also a bibliographical database

Repertories for a single language

Dutch

English

German

  • Handschriftencensus: Eine Bestandsaufnahme der handschriftlichen Überlieferung deutschsprachiger Texte des Mittelalters, Universität Marburg and Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz – the Marburger Repertorium, a repertory for manuscripts with texts in medieval German
  • Handschriftenarchiv, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften – a digitized versions of some 19,000 descriptions created between 1903 and 1945 of manuscripts with medieval German texts
  • Deutschsprachige illustrierte Handschriften des Mittelalters (KidH), Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften – a repertory for illuminated manuscripts with texts in medieval German
  • Mittelalterliche deutsche Autographen und Originale, Universität Münster – autograph manuscripts of medieval German authors

Greek

Hebrew

Icelandic

  • Handrit – a repertory with a growing digital collection for manuscripts from Iceland and in Icelandic held by Scandinavian institutions; interface Icelandic, Danish and English

Irish

Italian

  • Autografi dei Letterati Italiani, Università La Sapienza, Università Roma Tre and Università del Sacro Cuore, Milan – autograph manuscripts from Italian medieval and Renaisance authors; interface Italian and English

Syriac

Welsh

  • Daniel Huws, A repertory of Welsh manuscripts and scribes c.800–c.1800 (3 vol., Aberystwyth 2022)