24 Contours and Resources of the Middle Ages

Paula Mae Carns

Introduction

From its inception, medieval studies has been multidisciplinary. Due to space limitations, this essay focuses on multidisciplinary resources and on medieval women and literature. The former is included as a counterpoint to general resources; the latter because they are usually important components of the suite of duties for subject specialists in European studies. The chapter opens with a discussion of the terms “medieval” and “Middle Ages,” the sources used by medievalists, the institutionalization of medieval studies, and recent trends in the field, and concludes with a very brief history of the period.

Definitions

Medieval people did not consider themselves medieval nor living in the Middle Ages, but rather “modern” (moderni in Latin), and their predecessors “ancients” (antiqui). The notion of the Middle Ages can be traced to the Italian humanists of the Renaissance who, inspired by the writers of ancient Rome and believing their works to be “illuminating,” regarded the years between the fall of Rome in the 5th century and their own in the 14th and 15th centuries to be the middle period (medium aevum), or, in the more pejorative term, “the Dark Ages.” Select writers from the 16th century onwards used the terms “Middle Ages” and “medieval,” but these terms only entered common usage in English in the early 19th century. While in modern scholarship the adjective “medieval” refers to all things pertaining to the Middle Ages, in common parlance, it often denotes violence and aggression. Because both terms were the invention of later writers and have negative connotations, some contemporary scholars eschew them.

Sources

Medievalists depend upon a wide range of sources that fall into two general groups: texts and physical objects. The majority of textual sources are the documents generated by ecclesiastic and religious institutions, secular corporations (such as royal chancelleries, courts, and universities), and wealthy families, and include laws, charters (deeds of land), privileges (granting rights), court records, wills, testaments, and inventories, to name the most common. Other types of texts are chronicles, hagiographies (lives of the saints), biographies, and literary works, all of which shed light on the history, customs, and ideals of the time. Medieval writing was preserved in handwriting on parchment (and, at the end of the period, on paper), either as single sheets or in the form of codices or rolls, the choice of format dictated by the length and nature of the writing. Medieval codices might collocate examples of a single type—early medieval capitularies, for example, contain laws, and cartularies contain charters—or combine examples of different kinds, following the common medieval practice of the miscellany. The language of medieval texts depends on place and time: Latin (West), Greek (East), Arabic, Hebrew and, late in the period, the vernacular. Our understanding of the Middle Ages is contingent on the available sources; as new sources come to light each year through archeological and archival finds, they either confirm or challenge prevailing hypotheses.

Today, medieval texts are found in European and North American archives and libraries in the form of originals or critical editions (in the case of illuminated manuscripts, in facsimiles). Locating the former is not easy, and requires spending time in holding institutions and working closely with archivists and librarians. Since the 19th century, archivists, librarians, and scholars have undertaken the monumental task of transcribing and translating these important remnants of the past and making them easier to find and read. Secondary works are good starting points for isolating possible examples and identifying institutional collections.

Noteworthy Websites for Medieval Texts

  • Archives Portal Europe provides access to archival materials on the European continent; visitors can search across content using various parameters or topics. Open access.
  • Europeana is a collection of Europe’s cultural heritage in word, image, and sound. Visitors can create their own collections (via login) or view curated exhibits. Open access.
  • Fordham University’s Internet Medieval Sourcebook collocates “clean” (minus advertisements) out-of-copyright medieval historical texts for educational use. Open access.
  • Georgetown University’s The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies, now archived via the Wayback Machine but still valid, gathers together a wealth of digital resources. Use the “Categories” menu option to access resources. Open access.
  • Online Medieval Sources Bibliography is a searchable bibliography of medieval texts available in modern printed form and/or translations with links to some online texts. Open access.

European and US libraries have digitized many of their medieval manuscripts, especially those with beautiful illuminations, and included information about them. Two invaluable tools for hunting down manuscripts, particularly those housed in the US, are:

Online open-access sites for multiple library holdings include:

Online, Open-access Sites for Single Library Holdings

Medievalists rely on a wide range of physical articles as well, including art works, architecture, clothing, coins, domestic objects, personal items, seals, and textiles. Many such articles have been lost to the ravages of time or discarded because they weren’t deemed worthy of keeping. Locating these holdings in online catalogs and websites is best achieved by searching by material type (e.g., textile, ivory, metalwork), object type (e.g., manuscript, furniture, seals), or, in the case of archeological finds, dig site. The scholarly societies of the International Center of Medieval Art and the Society of Medieval Archeology are active in their respective areas and offer their members access to resources.

Institutionalization of Medieval Studies

Medieval Studies emerged as a discrete yet interdisciplinary area of study in the early 20th century with the establishment of centers, programs, and conferences devoted to it in the US and Europe. The first, established in 1929, was the Institute of Mediaeval Studies (now the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS)) at the University of Toronto. Other universities on both sides of the Atlantic soon boasted such centers; noteworthy are the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (1946), the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University (1962), and the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds (1967). The latter two host annual, multi-day gatherings that bring together thousands of scholars working on an astonishing variety of topics: the International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, Michigan) and the International Medieval Congress (Leeds, England). The Medieval Academy of America (MAA), founded in 1925 and the largest US organization in the medieval studies field, hosts an annual gathering at a different US institution each spring, features a robust open-access website, and publishes a major journal and two book series (noted below). Also valuable for librarians is the Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Discussion Group of the European Studies Section (ESS) of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), which meets biannually and hosts presentations on various topics with an eye to educating librarians about trends and resources.

Periodization and Geography

The Middle Ages are commonly described as lasting from 500-1500 CE and covering the former territories of the Roman empire, both West and East (Byzantium), as well as Arabic regions (after 800 CE). Most scholars follow the English historian Edward Gibbon and his greatly influential six-volume The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776, available open access via Project Gutenberg), marking the start of the era as 476 CE, when Odoacer proclaimed himself ruler of Italy. Others prefer later dates, when medieval culture had a stronger foothold. The “end” of the Middle Ages is harder to pin down, for no clear date presents itself; most scholars see post-1500 Europe as markedly different from what came before. Certainly, people living on this side of 1500—especially Humanists, who were interested in and promoted (at least more than in previous centuries) classical learning and culture through art, writing, and activities—noted differences. Medieval life was not static, and great changes occurred during the millennium, rendering the end of the period quite different from the beginning, though some factors persisted enough to be discernible as “medieval.”

Scholars tend to divide the Middle Ages into three stages: Early (ca. 400-1000), Central (ca. 1000-1300), and High (ca. 1300-1500). The Early Medieval period witnessed the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire, Barbarian (mainly Germanic) invasions, adoption of Christianity as a state religion, establishment of monasticism and monasteries, and development of feudalism/ manorialism, which led to a general trend away from city life to country life. The Central Middle Ages saw the rise and spread of the Muslim religion, expansion of international trade and travel, particularly for religious purposes (pilgrimage and crusades), and Viking invasions. And the Late Middle Ages witnessed, among other high points, the emergence of national states, founding of universities, development of towns, growth of the population, and spread of literacy.

The recent global turn in medieval studies has not only expanded the geographical reach of the field but has transformed the nature of related scholarly inquiry. In a 2015 article in the inaugural volume of Medieval Worlds, Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen define this new scholarly direction: “To analyze the global as it was experienced in the Middle Ages” (Holmes and Standen 2015, 106). They start from the premise that medieval people were in contact with individuals from other regions, both within Europe and beyond, and that this contact influenced and impacted their lives and worldviews. Holmes and Standen advocate a blend of “connection and comparison” methodologies they call “combinative,” equally promoting regional and worldwide characteristics (2015, 106). This Global Middle Ages approach embraces humanities and social science theories and methodologies along with cross-disciplinary research, particularly carried out by diverse research teams. It is less concerned with origins (unlike post-medieval global history, which often looks to earlier periods solely to explain later ones and treats the Middle Ages purely as a prehistory to modernity), and is interested in connections across regions more than across time. Because the dates 500 CE and 1500 CE are less meaningful outside Europe, dating is more flexible in the study of the Global Middle Ages; terminal dates can shift depending on the region and phenomenon under investigation. Key themes include networks; infrastructures, such as roads, transportation, asd institutions; and movement of people, ideas, and objects.

Research on the Global Middle Ages appears in two journals: The Medieval Globe (subscription resource), founded in 2015 at the Program in Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Medieval Worlds: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies (open access), founded in 2015 at the Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. The 2021 textbook Global Medieval Contexts 500-1500: Connections and Comparisons, edited by Kimbery Klimek et al., gives non-specialists insight into this emerging field, while Albrecht Classen’s Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends (2010) provides key definitions.

Multidisciplinary Resources

Multidisciplinary surveys on the Middle Ages abound. Though often labeled “histories,” they are broader in scope and include information on other disciplines, such as art, education, literature, philosophy, religion, and science.

Numerous surveys cover the entire period. An excellent quick read is Miri Rubin’s The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction (2014), which is organized around the topics of periodization, people and their lifestyles, Christianity, government and governance, trade and resources, “others,” and the contemporary legacy of the Middle Ages (including the university system). By focusing on people in general (as opposed to rulers), and on their lifestyles, social organization, and hopes for an afterlife, Rubin paints for the non-specialist a clear and comprehensive picture of the period. Another key history is Barbara Rosewein’s A Short History of the Middle Ages (2018). First published in 2002, this bestselling survey, often used as a textbook, covers the period from 300 CE to 1500 CE and integrates material from three civilizations (European, Byzantine, and Islamic) as well as from East Central Europe, a focus new to the latest edition. The eight chapters are organized chronologically around shared themes and interspersed with essays on the production of material culture, which replace the previous art historical discussions. Numerous images, maps, genealogies, and bibliographies accompany each section.

Another survey of note is Judith M. Bennett and Sandy Bardsley’s Medieval Europe: A Short History (2020), which for five decades has been used in medieval studies courses. The most recent edition (2020) “pays particular attention to Europe in its broader context—that is, to connections between Europeans and people elsewhere” (Bennett and Bardsley 2020, xvii). New to this edition are learning goals for students and expanded chapters on Byzantine and Islamic empires and on social and economic changes, all in response to current interest in the broader Middle Ages and in the lives of the diverse peoples. Though over 30 years old and predating recent changes in field, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages (1986-1997), edited by Robert Fosser (2001), still provides an excellent general introduction to the period. With essays written by experts in the field, this three-volume set is geared towards advanced graduate students and scholars. And a noteworthy and refreshing recent treatment of the entire period is Chris Wickham’s Medieval Europe (2017)—not a survey, but an interpretation sparked by key changes, with an emphasis on political and socio-economic structures. Wickham’s discussion of earlier histories of the period and his extensive bibliography make this volume an excellent starting point for readers new to the field.

Helpful books on discrete periods are found in two series: the Penguin History of Europe, which includes Chris Wickham’s The Inheritance of Roman: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (2010), William Jordan’s Europe in the High Middle Ages (2004), and The Short Oxford History of Europe (2000), which features three collections of essays by leading scholars on the Middle Ages: The Early Middle Age, Europe 400-100 (2001), edited by Rosamond McKitterick; The Central Middle Ages, 950-1320 (2006), edited by Daniel Power; and The Later Middle Ages (2021), edited by Isabella Lazzarini. Unlike the books in the Penguin series, which do not follow a set structure, those in the Oxford Short History series are divided into thematic categories, namely politics, society, economy, religion, and culture, plus additional topics characteristic of the age.

In addition to surveys, there are many multidisciplinary reference works, most of which are out-of-print and thus available only through the secondhand book market. Though published from 1982-1989, the 13-volume Dictionary of the Middle Ages (1982), edited by Joseph R. Strayer with entries by a large coterie of experts, remains a key reference work. Strayer and his team sought to provide North American high school and college students with articles on a wide range of topics, aiming for depth without being overwhelming in detail. The entries are drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from history, literature, and art, and describe important periods, figures, and concepts; select bibliographies allow readers to dive more deeply into the topics. The result is a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the period. A supplementary volume, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Supplement 1 (2004), edited by William Chester Jordan, aims to broaden what many medievalists saw as a limited purview, including issues such as race and medievalism (revival of medieval culture); it bears witness to the vibrancy and ever changing nature of the field. The two-volume Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages (2015), edited by André Vauchez and Adrian Walford, covers more terrain and takes into account people living outside of Europe and not subscribing to Judeo-Christian religions. Focusing on Europe, with a desire to help Europeans to understand their past (and, by extension, their present) culture, the authors privilege philosophy, theology, spirituality, liturgy, and iconography. Norman F. Cantor’s The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages (1999) is a handy one-volume reference work covering highlights of the period. Useful as well is the series Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages (2003), which to date has 16 volumes on various regions and topics.

Scholarly literature on the Middle Ages has traditionally been published in the form of books (the gold standard), book chapters, and journal articles. Most university presses and some trade publications produce single books or book series on medieval topics. Noteworthy publishers are:

Scholarly reviews of books dating back to 1993 can be found at The Medieval Review (open access) and in most scholarly journals.

In addition to the series already mentioned, these book series for medieval studies deserve mention:

  • Palgrave Macmillan’s The New Middle Ages is, according to the series webpage, “dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses.”
  • The University of Pennsylvania Press’s The Middle Ages Series has produced a steady stream of books on a wide array of topics since the 1990s.

Journals for medieval studies are plentiful, with most concentrating on a specific period, region, or topic and being the output of scholarly societies. A few have a wide purview, including:

  • Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies (emphasis on theoretically driven scholarship). Subscription resource.
  • Speculum: Journal of the Medieval Academy of America. Subscription resource.
  • Viator: Journal of UCLA’s Center for Early Global Studies. Subscription resource.

Disciplinary Databases

  • International Medieval Bibliography (IMB): Started in 1967 with support of the MAA but produced at the University of Leeds, England. Key subscription-based database for medieval studies, offering a comprehensive bibliography of journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings on a wide scope of subjects. Subscription resource.
  • Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages & Renaissance: Result of a partnership between US and Canadian institutions; now available for a subscription fee. Useful for scholars and students working in the long Middle Ages and Early Modern period. Subscription resource.
  • The MAA’s Medieval Digital Resources: freely-available database of peer-reviewed digital materials for the study of the Middle Ages. Open access.
  • Regesta Imperii (Inventory of Holy Roman Emperors): At the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz); offers freely available bibliography covering a wide array of subjects. Has an English interface in addition to a German one. Open access.

For additional subscription and open-access databases as well as other resources for Medieval studies, see the European Studies Section’s Medieval and Renaissance Studies guide, which is specifically geared towards librarians, and a handy tool in answering reference queries.

Medieval Women

We know little about the lives of medieval women, primarily because women were rarely mentioned in church, family, historical, or legal documents. While the birth of a son, for instance, was usually noted in such documents, the arrival of a daughter often was not. The same was true of obituaries. And while we know more about royal and aristocratic women, especially those such as queens and abbesses who held positions of power in a family or in society, that knowledge usually relates to their interactions with powerful men rather than to their own actions. The lack of knowledge about medieval women also arises from the fact that, since the inception of medieval studies as an academic discipline, most medievalists have been men focused on the lives of men, particularly secular (e.g., kings, aristocrats) and ecclesiastical (e.g., popes, bishops) leaders. Since the 1970s, however, with more women becoming medievalists and joining the ranks of university faculty, interest in the lives of medieval women and in related issues of gender has been growing.

From the scholarly literature we gather that medieval women, like their male counterparts, inhabited numerous roles. Except for women serving in religious roles (e.g., nuns, abbesses, anchorites), a woman’s foremost role was as wife and mother. The married woman oversaw the household, whether a simple peasant’s cottage or a grand castle, furnishing the living spaces, preparing food and medicine, and making cloth and clothing, all to ensure that her family was comfortable, fed, clothed, and healthy. A woman’s participation in these activities depended on her station and resources: wealthier women hired underlings to perform the work, while poorer women had to do it themselves. Women were also the educators of their children, teaching their daughters wifely duties and skills and, after the rise of secular literacy in the 14th century, their sons and daughters writing and reading (before the 15th century, writing was considered a professional skill and not taught in the home). Christian women, in addition, were charged with the spiritual development of their offspring, and taught them prayers in addition to writing. Many extant medieval prayer books include alphabets, revealing the close connection between learning and faith.

Some medieval women assumed leadership roles. Queens and noblewomen often became deeply involved in politics, both while married and widowed, and acted on the local or international stage. After a husband’s death, some medieval noblewomen took charge of their domains, even refusing to remarry so they could continue in power. With the rise of an urban economy in the 13th century, the wives of artisans and shopkeepers not only helped in the store but took over the family business if the husband passed away and no son could replace him. Abbesses led their communities, which could be quite large. And medieval women were also important players in the artistic and literary realms; some, like the famous 12th century French author Marie de France, composed works, while others commissioned them.

The burgeoning scholarship on medieval women has resulted in a number of valuable resources. The Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, for instance, actively encourages the study of medieval women and publishes Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality (partial open access), the only journal devoted to medieval women. Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index, an open-access database for citations of journal articles, book reviews, and book chapters about women, gender, and sexuality during the Middle Ages, is indispensable for research on medieval women.

Key texts for the study of medieval women:

  • Margaret Schaus’ Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (2006): Incorporates the wealth of recent scholarship on medieval women. Entries address topics and individuals, the latter chosen because of historical significance or the collectives they represented. Restricted to the European Middle Ages, but includes Byzantine individuals in contact with western Europeans.
  • Susan Signe’s A Medieval Woman’s Companion: Women’s Lives in the European Middle Ages (2016): Includes short biographies of 20 women from the European Middle Ages and all walks of life, with information on how these women shaped their worlds in a wide range of areas, from art to marriage to sexual violence. Also see the companion website: A Medieval Woman’s Companion.
  • Two older yet still significant works are Jennifer Lawler, Encyclopedia of Women in the Middle Ages (2001; open access via the Internet Archive) and Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis, Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, (2004).
  • Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing (2003): A good introduction to the literary output of medieval women.
  • Judith Bennett and Ruth Karras’s The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (2013): Provides chapters on an array of topics.

Literature

The Middle Ages was a time of vibrant literary production. In Christian communities in Western Europe, literature was written in Latin and, starting in the 11th century, in the vernacular, which in many areas was a constellation of various dialects. French literature was pre-eminent and adapted and translated by writers in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries, and is thus the focus here.

Medieval literature was highly intertextual, and writers and their audiences delighted in modifying earlier works, borrowing characters, making intertextual references, and interweaving the stories of more than one character. From the 11th to the 13th centuries, rhyming lyric poetry was the dominant literary format. An early example is the troubadour love song that southern French men (troubadours) and women (trobairitz), often from the noble class, wrote and sang in the local dialect of Occitan about love and chivalry. Another is the chanson de geste (also called epic) that celebrates feudalism, the relationship between king and vassal, and past heroes. Valuing direct observation and realistic details, which they believed was not possible with the rhyming schemes of poetry, some 13th-century authors switched from poetry to prose addressing major themes of love, arms, and war, reflecting the period’s cultural and social realities.

The 12th century witnessed the emergence of the genre of romance, so called as it was written in one of the many French vernaculars, romanz. Unlike the epic, which was structured around the conflict of armies and battles, the romance followed an individual knight’s quest, almost always undertaken for the love of a woman (the emphasis was on the knight’s feats and less on his lady love). Many of these stories took place in the Arthurian orbit. The work of Chrétien de Troyes, the most well-known writer of 12th-century romances, inspired the great narratives of the 13th century, most of which were written in prose. The most familiar is the Vulgate Cycle (also called the Lancelot-Grail cycle) which, in five books, recounts the long history of the so-called holy grail and the Arthurian world, from the Last Supper (where Christ used the grail) to the death of King Arthur. Not all French literature, however, was refined and courtly. The bawdy and comic tales known as the fabliaux enjoyed popularity from the 12th to the 15th centuries and inspired writers outside France, including Boccaccio (Italy, in his Decameron) and Chaucer (England, in his Canterbury Tales).

Literary histories for Latin and European vernacular languages in Western Europe tend to be organized by language and, in the case of vernacular literature, by country in response to the nationalistic impulses of 19th-century scholars who used literary works to define contemporary nation states. Other organizing principles are subperiod, region, genre, and topic. Following the period’s tendency to blend secular and sacred, modern scholars take a broad view of medieval literature and include works with religious and hagiographical themes. For medieval Latin literature, Ralph J. Hexter and David Townsend’s The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature (2012) is an excellent starting point. Indispensable recent works for vernacular languages include:

  • England: David Wallace’s The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (1999).
  • France: Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet’s A New History of Medieval French Literature (2011).
  • Germany: Joachim Heinzle’s Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit (Heinzle 1984-2004); Brian Murdoch’s German Literature of the Early Middle Ages (2004); Will Hasty’s German Literature of the High Middle Ages (2006); and Max Reinhart’s Early Modern German Literature 1350–1700 (2007).
  • Italy: Natalino Sapegno and Vincenzo Traversa’s A Literary History of the Fourteenth Century: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: A Study of Their Times and Works (2016).
  • Scandinavia: Margaret Clunies Ross’s The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga (2010); Guðrún Nordal, Sverrir Tómasson, and Vésteinn Ólason’s Íslensk bókmenntasaga (1992-2006); Carol J. Clover and John Lindow’s Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide (1985); and Rory McTurk’s A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (2005).

Several key online tools for Western European literature provide full texts of literary works or secondary literature about them. The former might appear in original medieval script, transliteration, English translation, or a combination of the three. Latin literary works are invariably compiled with other genres.

There are several scholarly societies for the study of medieval literature, including The International Arthurian Society – North American Branch, which published the Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society (1949-2011) later converted and continued by the subscription-based BIAS (Bibliography of the International Arthurian Society). Of note as well is the International Courtly Society.

Jewish literature, written in poetry or prose and in Hebrew, Arabic, or a European vernacular, flourished in the Middle Ages, especially in southern Spain (Al-Andalus) but also in North Africa and Northern Europe. Long before the Middle Ages, Jewish poets wrote liturgical poetry in Hebrew for use in the synagogue, a tradition that continued through the Middle Ages. In 10th-century Al-Andalus, influenced by Arabic poetry, Jewish poets began to compose secular works in Hebrew using Arabic themes and forms. The decision to use Hebrew, which was not a spoken language in medieval Spain (it was reserved for religious purposes), demonstrates the poets’ desire for self-expression and identity. The three most common types of medieval Jewish poetry in southern Spain were the panegyric, the lampoon, and poems of entertainment. Secular poetry soon became a central feature of Jewish life in Spain, and the tradition spread to other Arabic regions. In the 12th century, Spanish Jews found Christians more hospitable and relocated to northern Spain, where they were influenced by Christian and northern European writing in both poetry and prose. Hebrew medieval prose literature has received little scholarly attention until recently, and our understanding of this work is still sketchy. Surviving manuscripts reveal that Jewish writers living throughout Europe were inspired by contemporary prose genres, such as the legends of Alexander the Great and of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and adapted and translated them into Hebrew. Medieval Jews also produced retellings of Biblical stories and mystical works.

Studies of medieval Jewish literature tend to focus on region and type, with a strong emphasis on the golden age of Jewish poetry in 10th-12th century Al-Andalus. The International Medieval Bibliography and MLA International Bibliography databases, mentioned above, are helpful points of departure for research.

Key texts for medieval Jewish literature:

  • The Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (2010), edited by Norman A. Stillman, features sections on “Literature, Hebrew prose (Medieval)” and “Hebrew Poetry in the Medieval Islamic World.” Subscription resource.
  • Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia (2003), edited by Norman Roth, offers a short but useful section on medieval Jewish literature.
  • Additional short essays are found in the Dictionary of the Middle Ages (Strayer 1982-1989) under “Hebrew Belles Lettres,” “Hebrew Poetry,” and “Literature, Hebrew, Europe and the Mediterranean.”

Arabic literature, both in prose and verse, not only greatly influenced medieval European literature but also belonged to the “medieval globe,” and hence deserves mention here. Medieval Arabic poetry was an extension of earlier Classical, pre-Islamic (8th century) poetry in style and subject, but with greater emphasis on the new social structure of the court and on themes of love and religion (the genres of the panegyric and lampoon continued). A major love theme was the exaltation of the lady love, a key notion borrowed by French troubadours. Arabic poetry declined after the 13th century except in Al-Andalus, where it remained strong until the expulsion of Arabs in 1492 CE. With the exception of didactic stories, medieval Arabic writing in prose was predominantly non-fictional.

Key texts for Arabic literature:

  • History of the Arabic Written Tradition (2016): Three-volume set by Carl Brockelmann, Joep Lameer, and Jan Just Witkam; offers extensive essays.
  • The Routledge Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (2010), edited by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey; useful for quick introductions.
  • Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (2004, available online through Gale), by Richard C. Martin; includes sections on literature. Subscription resource.

Key Subscription-based Databases for Arabic Literature:

Key Takeaways

Medieval Studies is a large and diverse field that is constantly changing and expanding, both geographically and temporally.

References and Recommended Readings

Bennett, Judith M. and Sandy Bardsley. 2020. Medieval Europe: A Short History, 12th ed. Oxford University Press.

Brockelmann, Carl Joep Lameer, and Jan Just Witkam. 2016. History of the Arabic Written Tradition. Leiden: Brill.

Cantor, Norman F., ed. 1999. The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. New York: Viking.

Cerquiglini-Toulet, Jacqueline. 2011. A New History of Medieval French Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Clover, Carol J. and John Lindow, eds. 1985. Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Conway, Melissa and Lisa Fagin Davis. “Directory of Institutions in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 109/3 (2015): 273-420. https://doi.org/10.1086/682342.

Dinshaw, Carolyn and David Wallace. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Fossier, Robert ed. 1986-1997. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gibbon, Edward. 1776. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. London: Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, in the Strand.

Hasty, Will, ed. 2006. German Literature of the High Middle Ages. Camden House History of German Literature. Rochester, New York: Camden House.

Heinzle, Joachim. 1984-2004. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit, 3 vols. Königstein/Ts.: Athenäum.

Hexter, Ralph J. and David Townsend, eds. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hollister, C. Warren and Judith M. Bennett. 2002. Medieval Europe: A Short History. 9th ed. Boston, Mass: McGraw-Hill.

Holmes, Catherine and Naomi Standen. 2015. “Defining the Global Middle Ages.” Medieval Worlds, no. 1, 106-117.

Jordan, William Chester. 2003. Europe in the High Middle Ages. New York: Viking.

Jordan, William Chester, ed. 2004. Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Supplement 1. New York, Detroit, San Diego, et al.: Thomson Gale.

Klimek, Kimberly et al. 2021. Global Medieval Contexts 500-1500: Connections and Comparisons. London: Routledge.

Lazzarini, Isabella, ed. 2021. The Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lawler, Jennifer, ed. 2001. Encyclopedia of Women in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland.

McKitterick, Rosamond, ed. 2001. The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400–1000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McTurk, Rory, ed. 2005. A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Martin, Richard C. ed. 2004. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.

Meisami, Julie Scott and Paul Starkey, eds. 2010. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. London: Routledge.

Morrison, Susan Signe. 2016. A Medieval Woman’s Companion: Women’s Lives in the European Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Murdoch, Brian, ed. 2004. German Literature of the Early Middle Ages. Camden House History of German Literature. Rochester, New York: Camden House.

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Link List

(all accessed May 17, 2023)

About the Author

Paula Mae Carns is Head of the Literatures and Languages Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and librarian for Romance languages and literature. She received a Master’s in Library Science and a doctorate in medieval and northern Renaissance art history from the same university. She has published numerous essays in scholarly books and journals on medieval art and literature and is an active member of the European Studies Section of ACRL.

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Handbook for European Studies Librarians Copyright © 2024 by Paula Mae Carns is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.24926/9781946135971.024