This course guide will help you locate primary and secondary sources for your research paper on a topic about Renaissance and/or Reformation Europe.
Library Search The library has launched a new website and an updated system for discovering library materials. This guide provides videos and step-by-step instructions on how to use Library Search for your work.
A selection of titles in the Cambridge collections:
To locate primary source materials in the library catalogue, add sources, documents, diaries, or personal narratives or correspondence to other relevant search terms.
Many libraries and archives have digitized their primary document collections. You can find primary documents on the Web using a search engine like Google to find primary document collections.
Use the terms "primary documents" or "primary sources" or "digital exhibition" or "digital collection" with your search terms. For example, "primary documents" reformation women.
Remember to critically evaluate your primary documents before you use them for your history paper.
Rome Reborn: the Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture - images and text about humanism (part of a larger digital exhibition on the Renaissance). From the Library of Congress.
Music in the Renaissance - a digital exhibition, part of the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. From the MET.
Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands - a digital exhibition which explores the evolution of courtly clothing from "Fashion Revolution" around 1330 to the flowering of the Renaissance in France in 1515. From the Morgan Library & Museum.
Italian Renaissance - a curated list of primary documents. Part of the Euro Docs collection from the Harold B. Library.
Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts - For a quick way to access these digitized documents go to the top of the page, choose Collection and from the drop down menu select, Medieval & Renaissance. From the Morgan Library & Museum.
History of Medieval and Renaissance Europe - a curated list of primary documents. Part of the Euro Docs collection from the Harold B. Library.
German History in Documents and Images - collection of primary sources documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present. From the German Historical Institute.
Post-Reformation Digital Library - a select database of digital books relating to the development of theology and philosophy during the Reformation and Post-Reformation. From the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research.
Reformation Europe - a curated list of primary sources on the themes of the Protestant and Catholic Reformation, conflict and women and Reformation. From Fordham University.
JSTOR and many websites listed under Digital Libraries, Exhibitions & Archives will have suitable images for your assignments. If you want to search for images beyond Google, try
Wikimedia Commons - images, sounds, and videos available in the public domain. The repository is created and maintained not by paid archivists but by volunteers.
Openverse - searches openly licensed images (free, in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license) from around the Internet.
Flikr - images from amateur and professional photographers.
Unsplash - photographs and images that can be used for personal or commercial projects.
When working on your assignments, including full citations for all sources you reference is important. If you come across and image and need to find its source, consider using a reverse search search like TinEye
It is also essential to be mindful of copyright and critically evaluate the sources you use to ensure they are historically accurate.
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