Medieval Art

How can we use the design and material features of manuscripts to understand a culture of the past? What can we infer about its history, including how it was used, from its condition? 

When researching a well-known work of art, you can look for previous interpretations of that specific work. But for many art objects held in special collections, those interpretations may be lacking.

Getting started: some tips and considerations

• previous interpretations of the specific manuscript you have chosen may not exist
• researchers can extrapolate information from the context surrounding an object, such as a manuscript, and make new connections
• start with more general information about its purpose, the region and period, the material, or the social context
• ask questions to direct your research: what do you want to find out about your manuscript?

Before beginning a search for information sources relating to the manuscript, it is a good idea to start by considering what you already know about the object and what you want to learn.

Finding and using descriptions of the manuscript (or of similar or related objects)

Find a description of your research manuscript:  MU Libraries Special Collections website -- Private Collection of Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts

• What leads in the description can you follow? Look for and keep track of terminology describing material features, content (e.g. religious terminology, historical terms), names (artisans, patrons, workshops, etc.), and so on. Use these terms as you continue researching. Are any references cited?
• What is lacking in the description or perhaps biased? Keep note of what you need to find elsewhere.

If the description is lacking, would other libraries have descriptions of a different copy of the manuscript you’ve chosen? Or of a similar or related one? Recommened place to start looking: 

• Bodleian Digital Library (includes manuscripts of: Western and Mesoamerican; Middle East and North Africa, Hebraica and Judaica, East Asia)

Tip: when browsing or searching, keep an eye out for bibliographies at the ends of descriptions. Even if you can’t find a related or similar manuscript to the one you chosen, there may be references that are related to your topic.

Background information sources (also called reference sources) that are reliable, such as encyclopedias, will help familiarize yourself even more with important manuscript formats, styles, production centers, individuals, etc., and to situate your research manuscript into historical, social, and/or political context, including of global exchanges and interactions. 

Oxford Art Online

Start with Oxford Art Online  Guides include those on

• European Medieval Art and Architecture.
• Latin American Art and Architecture
• East Asian art: China,   Korea,   Japan ,   Mongolia
• Indian Subcontinent
• Islamic art
• Buddhism: History and iconography in art
• Jewish art: Hebrew books and illustration

There are numerous entries on narrower topics, from individuals to specific manuscripts.

Other online reference tools: Oxford Reference Online and Gale Reference and eBooks

You can also use some of the general encyclopedias available through MU Libraries, including Oxford Reference Online.  Using Gale Reference and eBooks to look for background information can be helpful. Examples of resources available in either are:

• Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
• The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages 
• The History of the Book in the Muslim World
• Spanish Culture and the Muslims (a chapter in Arts and Humanities Through the Eras, Vol. 3: Medieval Europe 814-1450 
• New Catholic Encyclopedia

Tips: Don’t forget to look at the resources listed in the Bibliography at the end of each entry. This is an efficient way to find relevant secondary sources and discover key scholars to pay attention to. You'll start to recognize prolific authors, specialists in niche areas that may interest you, and significant journals or publishers.

• If you find a relevant book or article in a bibliography that is not current enough, search for it in Google Scholar. Then click on Cited By to see who has cited it since. This is a good way to find more current scholarship, or other related scholarship, too. 

Terminology - Make note of useful details and terms during this initial research stage so that you can use them as search terms when you start to search for more in-depth information (e.g., scholarly articles, conference presentations).

Print reference resources

Depending on the needs of your research, you may need to find and consult additional primary source materials. These primary sources might take the form of a similar manuscript to one you have chosen, or it could include an artwork in a different format, or even a manuscript from a different region or culture.

MU Library guide to help find primary sources: 

• History: Primary Sources: Pre-1600    

Digitized manuscripts

See the page Manuscripts & books before print

Images & other visual resourses

• Index of Medieval Art
  • These Princeton University collections include images and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century. Although the Index of Medieval Art was formerly known as the Index of Christian Art, it now includes secular subjects as well as a growing number of subjects from medieval Jewish and Muslim cultures.
• Calligraphy Qalam
  • A website with a variety of interactive tools and information to help you learn more about calligraphy in the Arab, Ottoman, and Persian traditions.
• A Thousand Years of the Persian Book - Exhibition
  • Created as highly illustrated manuscripts, these masterpieces of Persian poetry demonstrate the important place of literature, poetry, and bookmaking in the Persian-speaking world

In arts & humanities research, secondary sources are works that interpret, describe, or evaluate primary sources. 
Looking over scholarly secondary sources will help you come up with and refine a research idea and situate it within ongoing scholarly conversations. You also will use them to help answer the more focused questions you are investigating about the manuscript's context and use.

To find a book or article on a topic you are researching, search by subject, as well as just by keyword. This strategy can help you find relevant sources more efficiently. Subject headings are tags that libraries assigns to all the books about a particular topic to make those books easier to find. Tip: To focus your search better on what you hope to find, try combining a subject heading with keywords. 

Some suggested Subject Headings to try browsing with:

Medium or format:

Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscripts, Medieval
Miniature painting, Medieval
Scriptorium

Manuscript traditions or regions:

Manuscripts, Hebrew
Islamic miniature painting
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Islamic
Calligraphy, Islamic
Manuscripts, Mexican
Manuscripts, Buddhist
Calligraphy, Chinese
Tipitaka

Peoples, religions, cultures

Art, Medieval -- Great Britain
Jewish art and symbolism
Muslims -- Spain -- History
Buddhist art
Buddhist art and symbolism

Historical periods, dynasties 

Latin America -- History -- To 1830
Aztecs -- History -- 16th century
Civilization, Medieval--12th century
Safavid dynasty
Art, Japanese--Kamakura-Momoyama periods
Korean--Chosŏn dynasty, 1392-1910

Encounters, exchanges, acculturation

to try combining with keywords relevant to your topic: 
European influences    Islamic influences       
East and West     Intercultural communication     Cross-cultural

Broader topics

Art, Medieval 
Artists, Medieval
Art, Medieval -- Themes, motives

Tip: You may come across other useful subject terms during your research. Click on their links to find potentially relevent books and articles. Keep track of them so you can continue to search with them in future. To search with them, paste them into the search box and select SU Subject Terms from the Select a Field tab.