LibGuides: Time and Temporalities in Medieval and Early Modern Europe : Online Primary Sources

Online Primary Sources

Below are primary source collections in library databases and on the web. These collections include speeches, original news accounts, pamphlets, ephemera, and much, much more.

The Casebooks Project 1596–1634
The Casebooks Project offers a tool for searching and reading the medical records of the astrologers Simon Forman and Richard Napier. The project is ongoing: 48,500 cases are now live. When complete, it will contain 80,000 cases and images of the manuscripts.
Royal Society Journals 1665-2013
Notes and Records is the Royal Society's journal on the history of science. Each issue highlights fascinating examples of science shaping our lives, revealing reminiscences and discoveries, and authoritative book reviews.
Gerritsen Collection
Covers 1543 to 1988. Begun in the late nineteenth century, the Gerritsen Collection represents books and periodicals tracing the development of feminist consciousness through four centuries and fifteen languages. The Collection is one of the most important single sources in the study of women's history. 
Sex & Gender: Selected Sources
From the Internet History Sourcebooks. Links out to sites on Women's roles, men's roles, constructions of sexuality and gender and marriage.
Treasures of Heaven
Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe was organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and the British Museum, London.
Bodleian Library
Digital.Bodleian is an effort to make portions of the Bodleian's extraordinary library collections open to users around the world for learning, teaching and research.
Bibliotheque Virtuelle des Manuscrits Medievaux
A digital library of medieval manuscripts from French libraries across the country (but not the National Library), made available by the IRHT (Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes). The interface is in French but easy to use. There is a map view that allows you to browse by city.
Gallica Newspapers
Gallica gives the full text of several important French newspapers including Le Figaro (1826-1942), Le temps (1861-1939), L'humanité (1904-1944).
British Library
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: The Bavarian State Library in Munich
Digital collection (holdings in all languages). Narrow search by year of publication
SLUB Dresden Digital Collection
Holdings are in all languages, but interface is in German and broken down by topic.
Google Books
Contains early modern books. Narrow search by year of publication.

British Primary Source Collections

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection
The most important and comprehensive collection of early English-language newspapers, dating from 1603. A full-text digital archive of nearly 1,270 newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and broadsides collected by the Reverend Doctor Charles Burney (1757-1817), preserved and augmented by the British Library.

British Library Digital Collections
Discover the British Library's digitized highlights through manuscripts, diaries, stamps, maps, scientific reports and illustrations, photographs, and much, much more.
Wellcome Library Medieval Manuscripts
Medieval manuscripts come in a range of formats, from bound volumes to scrolls and folding almanacs. They include key theoretical works on medicine, collections of recipes and healing charms, and practitioners’ manuals.
Many of the works are in medieval Latin, others are in a range of European vernacular languages.
Wellcome Librarian Recipe Books
The Library holds an unrivalled collection of domestic recipe manuscripts spanning the 16th century to the 19th century. Some of these manuscripts have been digitised and are now freely available online.

British Periodicals
British Periodicals traces the development and growth of the periodical press in Britain from its origins in the seventeenth century through to the Victorian 'age of periodicals' and beyond. Topics covered in Collection I include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences. Topics in Collection II include literature, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.

Early English Books Online
Includes all known English-language books from the beginning of printing in 1475 to 1700.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
ECCO aims to deliver every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the Eighteenth Century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.
Making of the Modern World Digital Archive
Full-text searching of digital facsimile images of books and periodicals on economy and business, published from 1450 through 1850.
National Archives
The UK's National Archives collection is one of the largest in the world, containing over 11 million historical government and public records. From Domesday Book to modern government papers and digital files, the collection includes paper and parchment, digital records and websites, photographs, posters, maps, drawings and paintings.