Thanks to a request from staff in History the Library is currently trialing access to 3 Brepolis databases: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature and Aristoteles Latinus. As well as trialling access to their Cross Database Searchtool which allows you to cross search all 3 of these databases, in addition to their Library of Latin Texts, which the Library already has a subscription to.
You can access all 3 databases plus the cross search database tool via the E-resources trials page.
Trial access ends 5th August 2023.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica (eMGH)
The Monumenta Germaniae Historica was founded in 1819 by the Gesellschaft für Deutschlands ältere Geschichtskunde. It is one of the most prestigious editorial undertakings for the critical publication of medieval historical texts. In more than 300 volumes, covering the widest possible range of historical documents, divided into five major Series (Scriptores, Leges, Diplomata, Epistolae and Antiquitates) and into 33 Subseries, the Monumenta not only continues its editorial programme but it has established for all Western scholarship a standard for critical editions.
Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature
In the early Middle Ages, literate individuals in and from the Celtic periphery of Europe (Ireland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, Scotland and the Isle of Man) wrote many and varied Latin works constituting what can arguably be seen as a distinctive literature, whose unusual vocabulary, grammar and phrasing (to say nothing of subject-matter) made it into what has been called “one of the most curious and interesting phenomena of medieval philology”. This database contains more than five hundred Latin works by over a hundred known and unknown authors, spanning the fields of theology, liturgy, computistics, grammar, hagiography, poetry and historiography, and including legal texts, charters, inscriptions, etc.
Aristoteles Latinus Database
The critical edition of all medieval Greek-Latin translations of Aristotle is one of the main projects of the research unit Aristoteles Latinus. The project is supervised and supported by the International Union of Academies, and its most important objective is to bring to evidence the various forms in which Aristotle’s texts came to be read in the West. The Latin versions of these texts constituted the main tools for the study of science and philosophy in the Middle Ages. They were considered as being the canonized littera to which all the commentaries on Aristotle’s works referred. The role played by these translations in the development of Western philosophical and scientific terminology can thus hardly be overestimated. The Aristoteles Latinus collection meets the highest standards for critical editions of medieval texts and an international board is responsible for its scientific value.
Cross Database Searchtool
Brepols Publishers remains committed to developing new tools to make its various electronic databases more user-friendly. To this end, Brepols offers the ‘Cross Database Searchtool’. This interface allows the user to search various Latin full-text databases simultaneously, namely the Library of Latin Texts, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature and the Aristoteles Latinus Database. As a result, users who have access to these different databases are able to use this common interface to conduct a search of the various corpora.
Note, the University already has a subscription to the Library of Latin Texts but access to the other 3 databases is limited to this trial period.
You can access Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature and Aristoteles Latinus, as well as the Cross Database Searchtool via the E-resources trials page.
Trial access ends 5th August 2023.
Feedback welcome.
Please note, trial access to a resource is an opportunity for our staff and students to try a resource out and give feedback on its quality and usefulness. However, if we trial a resource this is not an indication that we plan to or will be able to purchase or subscribe to the resource in the near future.
Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for History, Classics and Archaeology