Medieval & Early Modern Theology

Early Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - includes documents from the Ante-Nicene Fathers (The writings of the Church Fathers down to 325 A.D.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (St. Augustine Volumes/ St. Chrysostom Volumes), and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series II (Various Church fathers, and seven ecumenical councils).

Institute for Christian Leadership: Guide to Early Church Documents - contains links to online sources relating to the early church, such as the canonical documents, creeds, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers and other historical texts relevant to church history

New Advent: The Fathers of the Church – list of primary documents from the early patristic age

Patristic Bible Commentary – provides an overview of different commentary excerpts of various Early Church Fathers. You can see commentaries on each part of the Old and New Testaments, including some on the Apostles’ Creed.

Early Christian History

BiblIndex - a compilation of biblical references found in Christian literature, both Western and Eastern texts, at present covering the first through fourth centuries. This project is ongoing and hopes to expand its offerings to cover all of late antiquity and the early middle ages.

Fourth Century Christianity – promotes and stores research tools and texts for the study of the Church and its environment in the Fourth Century.

Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Christian Origins - Fordham University have created an amazing source which provides a list of various primary sources concerning Christian Origins up to the third century.

The ThALES Lectionary - gives access to ancient and medieval Jewish and Christian lectionaries, including 34 lectionaries with at least one witness of most Jewish and Christian liturgical families (i.e. Roman, Gallican, Mozarabic, Bohairic, Jerusalem (Armenian), Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Yemenite, Saadia Gaon, Mishnah...); 4015 liturgical events; and 13075 readings. Users can search for readings, create synopses of related lectionaries, and reconstruct liturgical calendars for a given year and calendar (Julian, Jewish, Armenian, Coptic, Islamic).

Medieval Church History and Theology

Internet Medieval Sourcebook – Fordham University’s sourcebook contains the largest collection of online medieval texts.

Introducing Medieval Christianity – a new site designed to introduce students to some key concepts in medieval Christianity. The goal is to provide short articles and other resources which will help undergraduates in their study of medieval culture and literature.

The Golden Legend – Fordham University have digitised Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, a hagiographical work about individual saints.

Corpus Synodalium – The Corpus Synodalium is a searchable full-text database of extant local ecclesiastical legislation (on marriage to money-landing) and papal law issued across Latin Europe from ca. 1215 - ca. 1400. This project is lead by Rowan Dorin and should soon offer the option of large-scale comparative analysis for the sources it hosts.

Corpus Kalendarium (CoKL) – A relational database gathering the calendar entries from European Books of Hours and details the saints and other feasts celebrated between the 11th through the 17th century. browse it via saint or manuscript. It allows for comparative analysis of different manuscripts’ calendar, with the possibility to track a particular saint’s popularity across time and sometimes places, and gives details such as the rank of a saint within the calendar and if annotations have been added. This project was created by Aaron Macks.

Corpus Corporum - A searchable deposit of full-text Latin works, including Patrologia Latina, from the University of Zurich.

Glossae Scripturae Sacrae-electronicae (Gloss-e) - Digital edition of the 1481 Biblia Latina cum glossa ordinaria Walafridi Strabonis aliorumque et interlineari Anselmi Laudunensis, printed at Strasbourg by Adolph Rusch of Ingweiler for Ant. Koberger of Nürnburg. This incunable is the earliest Latin Bible to be printed with 'glosses'. Gloss-e also offers digital access to Thomas Aquinas’ Cantena Aurea, the Commentary on the Four Gospels.

Patrologia Latina Database – an online version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina. The Patrologia Latina Database covers the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes. Some major figures included are Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Boethius, Isidore, Bede, Peter Damian, Bernard, Augustine, Peter Lombard, Peter Chrysologus and many others.

Early Chuch Fathers

Early Christian History

Medieval Chuch Hisory

Early Modern Theology

Early Modern Church History and Theology

The Acta Sanctorum Database - contains the text of the sixty-eight printed volumes of Acta Sanctorum published in Antwerp and Brussels by the Société des Bollandistes, from 1643 to 1940. The database also includes several indices. (Kent login may be required)

The Acts and Monuments Online (TAMO) - compares the unabridged texts of the four editions of this massive work published in John Foxe’s lifetime (1563, 1570, 1576, 1583).

Clergy of the Church of England Database (CCEd) - an AHRC-funded searchable database of clerical records from the English Reformation through to the mid-nineteenth century. Entries can be searched and sorted by name, diocese, location, and date.

Early European Books - gives access to works printed in Europe before 1701 from libraries across the world. New collections or materials are added twice a year, and recent (2020) acquisitions include printed texts on religion in the Iberian peninsula. Texts can also be plotted onto the site’s interactive map.

The English Reformation - available through The National Archives provide introductory material and notes on the Reformation in England, as well as primary documents dated between 1527 and 1590 from the State Papers collection. While the secondary material is targeted at secondary-level classrooms, the primary documents (available as images with transcriptions) are also helpful for further study.

The English Reformation: Tradition and Change - a digital collection from the Newberry Library that sets short scholarly essays alongside images of collection items, including a 1539 Great Bible, Queen’s Elizabeth’s prayer-book, and Caxton’s 1521 translation of Legenda aurea.

Dutch Revolt (University of Leiden) - offers a range of documents related to the Reformation and the Revolt of the Low Countries, between 1555 and 1609. While there is a limited number of sources available in English, the site also includes work in Dutch, German, French, and Spanish.

Gateway to Early Modern Manuscript Sermons (GEMMS) - a SSHRC-funded project to create an open-access, group-sourced, comprehensive, fully searchable, online bibliographic database of early modern (1530-1715) sermon manuscripts from the British Isles and North America.

Hanover Historical Texts Collection - makes available digital versions of primary documents in the public domain. The section on Early Modern Europe includes texts from the reformation in Germany to accounts of religious wars and British Acts and Injunctions.

Internet Archive of Texts and Documents: The Protestant Reformation - documents and information about people from Lutheran Reformations, Reformed Reformations, Radical Reformations, English Reformation, and Scottish Reformation.

Open Access Digital Theological Library - a curated collection of research aids and databases gathered from publisher websites, institutional repositories, scholarly societies, archives, and stable public domain collections.

Post-Reformation Digital Library - a select database of digital books relating to the development of theology and philosophy during the Reformation and Post-Reformation/Early Modern Era (late 15th-18th centuries).

Project Wittenberg - works by and about Martin Luther and other Lutherans, including commentaries, hymns, statements of faith, théologique treatises and biographies.

Reformation - texts and links on the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.

Religious Change and Print, 1450-1700 - hosted by the Newberry Library, this online exhibition explores the books, images, maps, and manuscripts that reflect the hope and fear, anxiety and certainty, and protest and violence that shaped the modern world.

Theological Perspectives of the Reformation - covers a variety of Reformation topics, including events leading up to the Reformation, the Catholic response, the Magisterial Reformation, the English Reformation, the Radical Reformation, Women of the Reformation, and Popes of the Reformation.

Reformation & Counter-Reformation

Reformation & Counter-Reformation [all merged into early modern]

Clergy of the Church of England Database (CCEd) - an AHRC-funded searchable database of clerical records from the English Reformation through the mid-nineteenth century. Entries can be searched and sorted by name, diocese, location, and date.

The English Reformation - available through The National Archives provide introductory material and notes on the Reformation in England, as well as primary documents dated between 1527 and 1590 from the State Papers collection. While the secondary material is targeted at secondary-level classrooms, the primary documents (available as images with transcriptions) are also helpful for further study.

The English Reformation: Tradition and Change - a digital collection from the Newberry Library that sets short scholarly essays alongside images of collection items, including a 1539 Great Bible, Queen’s Elizabeth’s prayer-book, and Caxton’s 1521 translation of Legenda aurea.

Internet Archive of Texts and Documents: The Protestant Reformation - documents and information about people from Lutheran Reformations, Reformed Reformations, Radical Reformations, English Reformation, and Scottish Reformation.

Internet Modern History Sourcebook - created by Fordham University, this website has many useful links, documents and primary sources beginning with the Reformation

Open Access Digital Theological Library - a curated collection of research aids and databases gathered from publisher websites, institutional repositories, scholarly societies, archives, and stable public domain collections.

Post-Reformation Digital Library - a select database of digital books relating to the development of theology and philosophy during the Reformation and Post-Reformation/Early Modern Era (late 15th-18th centuries).

Project Wittenberg - works by and about Martin Luther and other Lutherans, including commentaries, hymns, statements of faith, théologique treatises and biographies.

Reformation - texts and links on the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.

Religious Change and Print, 1450-1700 - hosted by the Newberry Library, this online exhibition explores the books, images, maps, and manuscripts that reflect the hope and fear, anxiety and certainty, and protest and violence that shaped the modern world.

The Routledge Handbook on Religion - makes available a large array of e-books on religious studies that can be sorted by time period, region, and broader movements or events. (Kent login required)

Theological Perspectives of the Reformation - covers a variety of Reformation topics, including events leading up to the Reformation, the Catholic response, the Magisterial Reformation, the English Reformation, the Radical Reformation, Women of the Reformation, and Popes of the Reformation.

Digital Texts

Latin Works

Resource page updated by Amilia Gillies - last updated 24/07/23

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A student-led initiative from the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Kent