Located at the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies, the Internet Medieval Sourcebook <http://www.fordham.edu/ halsall/sbook.html> is an online collection of public domain and copy‐permitted texts related to the study of the Middle Ages. More specifically, it contains primary source documents. In addition to texts that address legal, political and religious topics, the Sourcebook also includes documents on Islamic, Jewish, Byzantine, social and gender history. This resource has been in development for more than three years and is still growing. It is part of the Internet History Sourcebook Project at Fordham, which includes sourcebooks on ancient history and modern history; it also participates in ORB, the online reference book for medieval studies.
The Sourcebook is specifically designed for teachers to use with their classes. With this in mind, it is divided into three main sections: Saints’ lives, selected sources and full text sources. Of particular note, the selected sources page contains shorter extracts of texts, usually three or more pages long, which are of manageable length for class readings. The full text sources section has full‐length documents. There are also a large number of supplementary documents, including maps and images, law texts, French and Spanish texts and secondary sources.
Navigating the Sourcebook is relatively quick and easy. The content is organized around large index pages, many of which are rather long. This is intentional, according to the editor, to “avoid incessant ‘clicking’ to get between pages and to information”. This means that occasionally the pages are slow to load. Also, it is essential to remember to scroll through the entire page. Otherwise it is very easy to miss crucial information. For example, there is an informative introduction to the site buried near the bottom of the main Web page. However, because information is located on such long index pages, it only takes a few clicks to access the texts. In addition, the site is visually appealing and has a simple layout. The focus here is on content, not stunning graphics or complex design. The graphics are simple, and the text is very easy to read. The navigation bar on the left side of each page makes navigation even easier.
The Sourcebook does not have its own search engine, but there are four search options available from the search page. First, the Fordham Search will search any pages located on the Fordham University server. This is effective in locating files that are on the Sourcebook server; however, if a text is located elsewhere on the Web, it will not show up in the results. The second option is to use a specialized HotBot search, which is set up to search selected historical source sites, the entire Web, or any files in any of the Internet sourcebooks. This means that the medieval sourcebook as well as the modern and ancient history sourcebooks will be searched. A third option is to use the ORB (online reference book for medieval studies) search engine; this will look for any files at the ORB main site, but will not search all the files on the Sourcebook server. Finally, the fourth option is to use the Argos engine, which will search all of the Internet history sourcebooks and a select number of other sites.
With these four options, there are many search avenues available. The safest bet in locating materials is to try several of these. For instance, using the Fordham Search Page can quickly locate a file on the Sourcebook server. If the document is not there, then trying HotBot or Argos is a good next step.
There are many sourcebooks of primary texts on the Middle Ages available in print. However, this Web site provides a large collection that is freely available to anyone. It includes important primary documents that are an essential part of studying history and which are specifically intended for teachers and classroom use. In total, this resource is valuable to anyone interested in the Middle Ages and most especially to history students. I highly recommend this Sourcebook.
