Library Guides: Medieval Manuscripts at UD: Manuscript Collections Online

Digital manuscript collections

This selection of sites contain digitized versions of premodern manuscripts as well as other cultural heritage materials. They vary in organization and scope, from major national libraries to collaborative digital humanities repositories. When you're visiting a site for the first time, spend some time looking around and navigating the information they contain.

Search tip: test some of the suggested search terms listed in this guide. You can also try out available search facets, such as date, genre, or location.

Digital Humanities Projects

Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM)
The Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) project is a comprehensive resource for the 1,000+ miracle stories written about and the 2,500+ images painted of the Virgin Mary in these African countries, and preserved in Geʿez between 1300 and the present.
The France and England Project: Medieval Manuscripts between 700 and 1200
This website provides access to all of the project’s 800 manuscripts. Created by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), the manuscripts held by the BnF and the British Library can be viewed and compared side by side within the same digital library or annotated.
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Some links may be broken due to a major technology outage at the British Library as a result of a cyber-attack.

Digital collections from libraries and museums (selected)

Gallica (BnF)
The digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF).
British Library: Digitised Manuscripts
Access to 1,000 digitised manuscripts, available again for the first time since a cyber-attack in October 2023.
Digital Vatican Library (DigiVatLib)
DigiVatLib provides free access to the Vatican Library’s digitized collections: manuscripts, incunabula, archival materials and inventories as well as graphic materials, coins and medals, printed materials (special projects).
The Digital Walters: Ex Libris
Digitized manuscripts, bindings, and single leaves from the collection of the Walters Art Museum, with general category and keyword searches throughout the digitized manuscript collection.
Manuscripts of the Islamic World (Princeton University)
Manuscripts of the Islamic World offers a curated selection of extraordinary manuscripts hosted or held by Princeton University Library. The manuscripts are predominantly in Arabic, but there are also many in Persian and Ottoman Turkish.