Skip to Main Content

Medieval & Renaissance Studies

MEDREN: Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Duke Libraries

Encyclopedias - Electronic

​Featured: Oxford Reference

  • Brill Online Reference Works includes titles on pilgrimage, religion, dress and textiles, and more
  • The Oxford dictionary of the Middle Ages Oxford University Press.  3,000 concise and detailed articles on all aspects of the period from the fifth to the fifteenth century.
  • The Crusades: An Encyclopedia (Ebook)
  • Scholarly encyclopedia with illustrated essays and suggestions for further reading.
  • Encyclopedia of Religion
  • Middle English Compendium  Includes Middle English Dictionary, Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, and the HyperBibliography of Middle English.
  • Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages  authoritative survey of Britain in the later Middle Ages comprises 28 chapters written by leading figures in the field. Covers social, economic, political, religious, and cultural history in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
  • A Companion to the Medieval World (Blackwell) covers the major issues in the study of medieval Europe and highlights fruitful insights into the era which have developed through research in history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and literary studies. It addresses key themes such as identity and the self; sexuality and gender; and emotionality and ethnicity.
  • Companion to the Early Middle Ages  covers the key debates and issues involved in writing a history of Britain and Ireland in the early Middle Ages.
  • Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Very thorough information on authors, works, and cultural settings, with as much as 100 pages devoted to some works. Extensive up-to-date bibliographies.
  • Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages Also in print Perkins and Lilly Reference D114 .O94 2010.   Major new reference resource for all key aspects of European history, society, religion, and culture from circa 500 CE to circa 1500 
  • Cambridge Companions, Cambridge Histories use the advanced search to identify companions to Medieval topics. See Table of Contents on the right
  • Lexikon des Mittelalters (in German) The standard encyclopaedia for medieval studies. It deals with all branches of Medieval Studies and covers the period from 300 to 1500 AD/CE for the whole of Europe and parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

Encyclopedias - Print

Cambridge Histories Online - Note the large number of volumes inside the database!

Cambridge Histories Online

The online Encyclopedia Database “Cambridge Histories Online” is a great source for background information. Click into the database: Cambridge Histories Online Select the Browse function and look for Subjects and Volumes; below is a selection of titles to illustrate the depth of the resource:

British History 

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (3)



  • Volume 1: Industrialisation, 1700–1860 (2004)
  • Volume 2: Economic Maturity, 1860–1939 (2004)
  • Volume 3: Structural Change and Growth, 1939–2000 (2004)

The Cambridge Social History of Britain (3)



  • Volume 1: Regions and communities (1990)
  • Volume 2: People and their environment (1990)
  • Volume 3: Social Agencies and Institutions (1990)

The Cambridge Urban History of Britain (3)



  • Volume 1: 600–1540 (2000)
  • Volume 2: 1540–1840 (2000)
  • Volume 3: 1840–1950 (2000)

Economic History 

The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (8)



  • Volume 1: The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages (1966)
  • Volume 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages (1987)
  • Volume 3: Economic Organization and Policies in the Middle Ages (1965)
  • Volume 4: The Economy of Expanding Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1967)
  • Volume 5: The Economic Organization of Early Modern Europe (1977)
  • Volume 7, part 1 : The Industrial Economies: Capital, Labour, and Enterprise (1978)
  • Volume 7, part 2 : The Industrial Economies Capital, Labour, and Enterprise (1978)
  • Volume 8: The Industrial Economies: The Development of Economic and Social Policies (1989)

General History

The Cambridge World History of Food (2)



  • Volume 1: The Cambridge World History of Food (2000)
  • Volume 2: The Cambridge World History of Food (2000)

The New Cambridge Medieval History (8)



  • Volume 1: The New Cambridge Medieval History (2005)
  • Volume 2: The New Cambridge Medieval History (1995)
  • Volume 3: The New Cambridge Medieval History c.900-c.1024 (1999)
  • Volume 4, part 1 : c.1024–c.1198 (2004)
  • Volume 4, part 2 : c.1024–c.1198 (2004)
  • Volume 5: The New Cambridge Medieval History (1999)
  • Volume 6: The New Cambridge Medieval History (2000)
  • Volume 7: c.1415– c.1500 (1998)

History of Science 



The Cambridge History of Science (5)



  • Volume 3: Early Modern Science (2006)
  • Volume 4: Eighteenth-Century Science (2003)
  • Volume 5: The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences (2002)
  • Volume 6: The Modern Biological and Earth Sciences (2009)
  • Volume 7: The Modern Social Sciences (2003)

Literary Studies

The Cambridge History of Classical Literature (2)



  • Volume 1: Greek Literature (1985)
  • Volume 2: Latin Literature (1982)

The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (1)

Expand

  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (2004)

The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (1)

Expand

  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (2002)

The Cambridge History of English Literature (3)

Expand

  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Victorian Literature (2012)
  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature (2004)
  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660–1780 (2005)

The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (8)

Expand

  • Volume 1: Classical Criticism (1989)
  • Volume 2: The Middle Ages (2005)
  • Volume 3: The Renaissance (1999)
  • Volume 4: The Eighteenth Century (2005)
  • Volume 5: Romanticism (2000)
  • Volume 7: Modernism and the New Criticism (2000)
  • Volume 8: From Formalism to Poststructuralism (1995)
  • Volume 9: Twentieth-Century Historical, Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives (2001)

The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (1)



  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (1999)

Philosophy

The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy (2)

Expand

  • Volume 1: From Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century (2009)
  • Volume 2: The Modern Era (2012)

The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy

  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (1967) 

The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (1)



  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100–1600 (1982)

The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (2)



  • Volume 1: Volume 1 (2010)
  • Volume 2: Volume II (2010)

 The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity (2)

Expand

  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity (2010)
  • Volume 2: The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity (2010)

The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (1)



  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (1988)

Political and Social Theory 



The Cambridge History of Political Thought (6)



  • Volume 1: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2005)
  • Volume 2: The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350–c.1450 (1988)
  • Volume 3: The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700 (1991)
  • Volume 4: The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (2006)
  • Volume 5: The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (2011)
  • Volume 6: The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought (2003)

Religious Studies 


The Cambridge History of the Bible (3)



  • Volume 1: From the Beginnings to Jerome (1970)
  • Volume 2: The West from the Fathers to the Reformation (1969)
  • Volume 3: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day (1963)

The Cambridge History of Christianity (9)



  • Volume 1: Origins to Constantine (2006)
  • Volume 2: Constantine to c. 600 (2007)
  • Volume 3: Early Medieval Christianities c. 600–c. 1100 (2008)
  • Volume 4: Christianity in Western Europe c. 1100–c. 1500 (2009)
  • Volume 5: Eastern Christianity (2006)
  • Volume 6: Reform and Expansion 1500–1660 (2007)
  • Volume 7: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660–1815 (2006)
  • Volume 8: World Christianities c.1815–c.1914 (2006)
  • Volume 9: World Christianities c.1914–c.2000 (2006)

The Cambridge History of Islam (4)



  • Volume 1A: The central Islamic lands from pre-Islamic times to the First World War (1970)
  • Volume 1B: The central Islamic lands since 1918 (1970)
  • Volume 2 B: Islamic Society and Civilization (1970)
  • Volume 2A: The Indian sub-continent, South-East Asia, Africa and the Muslim West (1970)

The Cambridge History of Judaism (4)



  • Volume 1: Introduction; The Persian Period (1984)
  • Volume 2: The Cambridge History of Judaism (1989)
  • Volume 3: The Early Roman Period (1999)
  • Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period (2006)

The New Cambridge History of the Bible (1)



  • Volume 2: The New Cambridge History of The Bible (2012)

The New Cambridge History of Islam (6)



  • Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries (2010)
  • Volume 2: The Western Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (2010)
  • Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (2010)
  • Volume 4: Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century (2010)
  • Volume 5: The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance (2010)
  • Volume 6: Muslims and Modernity: Culture and Society since 1800 (2010)