what are the sources of the study of the medieval periods?
Answers
I. General Bibliographies and Handbooks
Retrospective:
Gray Cowan Boyce, Literature of Medieval History 1930-1975: A Supplement to Louis John Paetow’s A Guide to the Study of Medieval History, 5 vols. (Millwood NY, 1981). Supplements Paetow‘s Guide …, rev. ed. (1931; rev. ed. New York, 1980). The standard comprehensive reference work in English on medieval history, though now dated. There is an index of names (modern and medieval) in vol. 5, but no alphabetical subject index, so you must browse the table of contents and the complete list of subject headings in vol. 1 to determine which subheadings are most likely to contain relevant listings for your topic.
R. C. van Caenegem, Introduction aux sources de l’histoire médiévale, rev. ed. by Luc Jocqué (Turnhout, 1997). Thoroughly updated French trans. of Guide to the Sources of Medieval History, Europe in the Middle Ages: Selected Studies 2 (Amsterdam, 1978). . Splendid resource, well-organized and better annotated than Crosby et al, Medieval Studies, but excludes specifically literary texts. Part III, Chapter III, “Liste de sources,” lists repertories of medieval historical texsts by region and repertories of medieval Latin authors. Part IV, Chapter I, lists lexicographical and grammatical works for Latin and the major vernaculars. Abbreviated version published as Manuel des études médiévales (Turnhout, 1997).
Answer:
Why are more sources available for the study of the Medieval period compared to the Ancient period?
What does Google know about me?
I don’t think there are more sources available for study for the Medieval period. The problem is that the Ancient period was a very long time ago and not everything lasts forever. Secondly, it depends on what material the sources were written on. Third, not that many people could read or write and thus there is a scarcity of material. There certainly is NO material written by common people in either areas. The writings are of the wealthy, educated or religious class. You also have to consider that the Church burned a lot of material written by ‘infidels’.