Guides and databases: English: Medieval Language and Literature

Focus on Medieval Language and Literature

This page focuses on resources for the study of English Medieval Language and Literature provided by UCL Library Services.

For details of the modules covering this period please consult the relevant Moodle pages, here are the online reading lists for these modules:

You will find relevant materials in the following sections of the Main Library:

Anglo-Saxon Language, to 1050: ENGLISH BE
Middle-English Language, 1050-1500: ENGLISH BM
Anglo-Saxon Literature, to 1066: ENGLISH D
Middle English Literature, 1066-1485: ENGLISH E

Primary Texts

UCL Main Library holds multiple printed copies of the works of this period, for example:

Beowulf is located at ENGLISH D 25
Works by and about Thomas Malory are located at ENGLISH E 160
Works by and about Chaucer are located at ENGLISH E 320

Modern online editions can be accessed using Explore and the following database:

Oxford Scholarly Editions Online
UCL has access to selected titles. For a full list please search under 'uclebkoseo' within Explore or, from within Oxford Scholarly Editions Online, select browse and tick the 'Only view full text results provided....' option. Accessibility statement for Oxford Scholarly Editions Online.

Historical online editions can be accessed using the following databases:

Bloomsbury Medieval Studies
With a global perspective this platform brings together high-quality secondary content with visual primary sources, a brand new reference work, and material culture images. Accessibility statement for Bloomsbury Medieval Studies.
Historical Texts
Historical Texts brings together three collections in one platform: Early English Books Online (EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century collection.

Criticism

Use Explore to search for both print and online critical materials.

The following online resources contain full-text criticism:

Bloomsbury Medieval Studies
With a global perspective this platform brings together high-quality secondary content with visual primary sources, a brand new reference work, and material culture images. Accessibility statement for Bloomsbury Medieval Studies.
Cambridge Companions Online
A collection of ebooks from Cambridge University Press. Accessibility statement for Cambridge Core.
Oxford Scholarship Online
Full text of over 20,000 books from Oxford University Press. Accessibility statement for Oxford Academic.

If you need to be more comprehensive and search beyond what is available through UCL, the following bibliographies are relevant:

International Medieval Bibliography Index of literature on all subjects relating to the Middle Ages, within the date range 400-1500 AD. Geographical areas covered are Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
MLA International Bibliography See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to EBSCOhost. International database on language, literature, linguistics and folklore.
Oxford Bibliographies UCL has access to the African Studies, American Literature, Anthropology, Architecture Planning & Preservation, Art History, Atlantic History, Biblical Studies, British and Irish Literature, Childhood Studies, Chinese Studies, Cinema & Media Studies, Classics, Communication, Criminology, Ecology, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Geography, International Law, International Relations, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies, Linguistics, Literary & Critical Theory, Medieval Studies, Military History, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Renaissance & Reformation, Sociology, Urban Studies and Victorian Literature modules. Accessibility statement for Oxford Bibliographies Online.

Dictionaries

The Library provides access to the following online dictionaries:

Dictionary of Old English - A to I First portion of the dictionary defining the vocabulary of the first centuries (600-1150 A.D.) of the English language, part of an ongoing project. The DOE complements Middle English Dictionary (which covers the period 1100-1500 A.D.) and Oxford English Dictionary, the three together providing a full description of the vocabulary of English
Dictionary of Old English Corpus Corpus of the dictionary defining the vocabulary of the first centuries (600-1150 A.D.) of the English language. Contains at least one copy of every Old English text. The DOE complements the Middle English Dictionary (which covers the period 1100-1500 A.D.) and the Oxford English Dictionary, the three together providing a full description of the vocabulary of English. Can be searched by word, phrase or citation.
Middle English Dictionary Analysis of lexicon and usage for the period 1100-1500. See Dictionary of Old English and Oxford English Dictionary to provide a full description of the vocabulary of English.

Digital Manuscript Collections

The Library provides access to a number of online manuscript collections covering this period:

Bloomsbury Medieval Studies With a global perspective this platform brings together high-quality secondary content with visual primary sources, a brand new reference work, and material culture images. Accessibility statement for Bloomsbury Medieval Studies.
British Literary Manuscripts Online: Medieval and Renaissance This digital archive features British manuscripts dating from roughly 1120 to 1660. It offers hundreds of thousands of pages of letters, poems, stories, plays, chronicles, religious writings, and other materials.
Manuscriptorium Freely accessible, Manuscriptorium digital library is the designated platform for the European Digital Library of Written Cultural Heritage. Providing access to more than 5 million images of manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books, maps, deeds, charters and more, up to the year 1800.
Parker on the Web Digitisation of the Old English texts housed at the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. These account for a substantial proportion of all extant manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon, key Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts.

There are also some freely available digital manuscripts:

Key Medieval resources

The Riverside Chaucer

Contents The Canterbury Tales The Book of the Duchess The House of Fame Anelida and Arcite The Parliament of Fowls Boece Troilus and Criseyde The Legend of Good Women The Short Poems: An ABC. The Complaint unto Pity. A Complaint to His Lady. The Complaint of Mars. The Complaint of Venus. To Rosemounde. Womanly Noblesse. Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn. The Former Age. Fortune. Truth. Gentilesse. Lak of Stedfastnesse. Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan. Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton. The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse. Proverbs. Poems Not Ascribed to Chaucer in the Manuscripts: Against Women Unconstant. Complaynt D'Amours. Merciles Beaute. A Balade of Complaint A Treatise on the Astrolabe The Romaunt of the Rose

Beowulf

Composed towards the end of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is one of the great Northern epics and a classic of European literature. In his new translation, Seamus Heaney has produced a work which is both true, line by line, to the original poem, and an expression, in its language and music, of something fundamental to his own creative gift.

The Old English Boethius

Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, written in Latin around 525 A.D., was to become one of the most influential literary texts of the Middle Ages. The Old English prose translation and adaptation which was produced around 900 and claims to be by King Alfred was one of the earliest signs of its importance and use, and the subsequent rewriting of parts as verse show an interest in rivalling the literary shape of the Latin original. This new edition is the first to present the second prose-and-verse version of the Old English text, and allows it to be read alongside the original prose version, for which this is the first edition for over a century.

Introduction to Old English

Featuring numerous updates and additional anthology selections, the 3rd edition of Introduction to Old English confirms its reputation as a leading text designed to help students engage with Old English literature for the first time. A new edition of one of the most popular introductions to Old English Assumes no expertise in other languages or in traditional grammar Includes basic grammar reviews at the beginning of each major chapter and a "minitext" feature to aid students in practicing reading Old English Features updates and several new anthology readings, including King Alfred's Preface to Gregory's Pastoral Care

Beowulf and Other Stories

Now in a fully revised second edition, the collection of essays written by leading academics is set to build upon its established reputation as the standard introduction to the literatures of the time. Beowulf & Other Stories captures the fire and bloodlust of the great epic, Beowulf and the sophistication and eroticism of the Exeter Riddles. The book sheds light, too, on the shadowy contexts of the period, with suggestive and highly readable essays on matters ranging from the dynamism of the Viking Age to Anglo-Saxon input into The Lord of the Rings ;from the great religious prose works to the transition from Old to Middle English.

The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature

This Companion has been thoroughly revised to take account of recent scholarship and to provide a clear and accessible introduction for those encountering Old English literature for the first time. Including seventeen essays by distinguished scholars, this new edition provides a discussion of the literature of the period 600 to 1066 in the context of how Anglo-Saxon society functioned. New chapters cover topics including preaching and teaching, Beowulf and literacy. An additional concluding chapter on Old English after 1066 offers an overview of the study and cultural influences of Old English literature to the present day.

The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain

The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain comprises over 600 authoritative entries spanning key figures, contexts and influences in the literatures of Britain from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries. A uniquely multilingual and intercultural approach reflecting the latest scholarship, covering the entire medieval period and the full tapestry of literary languages. Represents all the literatures of the British Isles including Old and Middle English, Early Scots, Anglo-Norman, the Norse, Latin and French of Britain, and the Celtic Literatures of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall.