COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY STATEMENT

MEDIEVAL STUDIES

Department: Collections Management

Written by: Agnes Haigh Widder

Date drafted: Feb. 13, 2006

Date revised:

I. PURPOSE OR SCOPE OF COLLECTION

A. Curricular/Research/Programmatic Needs

The Medieval Studies collection supports instruction, research, and teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels on the Western European Middle Ages, the period of history from the fall of Rome in 476 A.D. up to and including the Renaissance. The Renaissance occurred over a period of time and the dates vary from country to country, from the late 14^th century through the early 1600s. Materials purchased are primarily in the English language. The English department offers 18 courses covering this period; the history department offers 16 such courses. Additional entities in the University offering courses covering aspects of Western Europe from 476 through the early 1600s include: Epidemiology, French, History of Art, Human Environment and Design, Interior Design, Lyman Briggs School, Linguistics, Language Learning and Teaching, James Madison College, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Religious Studies, Romance Languages, Spanish, Theater, Urban Planning, and Women’s Studies.

Medieval pilgrims, pilgrimage, church history, Christian, Jewish and medieval Spain, heresy, preaching, and deviance; Christian martyrdom; medieval universities and learning, updated and corrected editions of medieval primary sources; and English legal and constitutional history, Anglo-Norman law, and cartularies (records of monastic, etc. communities) are the specific research interests of the current history faculty.

Medieval English language, literature, and culture, Chaucer, Prose Brut, death and dissent, Arthurian literature, Old English language and literature, manuscripts, textual transmission and editing, and history of the English language; medieval medicine, literature and medicine, sex, aging, and death in medieval medical compendiums, Langland’s Piers Plowman, marriage and family, Henry of Lancaster’s Book of Holy Medicines, and devotional literature; Shakespeare’s language, performance of Shakespeare, silence in Shakespeare, theatrical dimensions of Shakespeare, poetry and drama of the English Renaissance; 16^th and 17^th- century English literature and culture, rhetoric, theory, gender, scientific and medical discourse, historiography, drama and drama about science; Shakespeare and feminist politics and 17^th-century travel narratives about India give a flavor of the research interests of the current English department faculty.

Presently, there are 76 names on the bibliographer’s private mailing list in medieval studies.

B. History of the Collection/Existing Strengths and Emphases

Study of the Western Middle Ages and Renaissance has long been a prominent aspect of the study of Western European literatures and history in American universities. Sets, series, primary sources in print and on microform, as well as secondary literature in monograph and periodical forms have long been collected. We own, for example, microforms contained in STC I and II (early English books, 1470-1700), French Books before 1601, Italian Books before 1601, German Books before 1601, and EEBO (Early English Books Online). The present bibliographer’s immediate predecessor, Robert Mareck, was a Ph.D. level trained medievalist, a former religious, with excellent skills in classical and Western European languages. At the time he was hired, 1979, the History Department offered a defined graduate studies track in medieval history led by nationally known scholars. At this time there was only one fund used to purchase all materials for the East Wing stacks in the Main Library. At the time individual discipline, area, and other funds were created, in the mid-1980s, Dr. Mareck’s knowledge coupled with the need to find a way to purchase the medieval and Renaissance materials then required by the graduate medieval studies program track in the English department, because the United States/United Kingdom literature bibliographer was not interested in purchasing the needed material, dictated the creation of our medieval studies fund.

Special Collections (SPC hereafter) began to collect illuminated manuscript facsimiles in the 1950s. SPC contains full and partial facsimiles, as well as a solid collection of secondary literature on various aspects of manuscript illumination and catalogues of collections. The scope of the collection ranges from a 6^th c. A.D. Bible fragment to 16^th century Books of Hours. The 1993 edition of Shirlee A. Murphy’s Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscript Facsimiles at the Michigan State University Libraries describes 187 items.

SPC contains 12 incunabula, works produced from the infancy of printing to 1501. SPC has another 137 works produced between 1501 and 1601. These are about early veterinary medicine, witchcraft, histories of France and Italy and specific places and periods in these countries, Roman, Canon, and civil law, religion, the Catholic Church, Greek and Latin authors’ works, works on various sciences before 1800, such as agriculture, gardening, zoology, and botany, government, cookery, poisons, emblem books, diplomacy, Bibles, architecture, prudence, wood-engraving, epigrams, bees, logic, the Reformation, excommunication, monarchy, education of princes, magic, and political science.

II. FACTORS INFLUENCING COLLECTION POLICY

A. Anticipated Future Trends

The bibliographer expects interest in this period and usage of the materials in print and online to continue. Given the amount of medieval manuscripts and the vast amount of printed material about the Middle Ages not under copyright, some of it in 19^th century, inaccurate editions in poor physical condition in the U.S. and European libraries, works of and on this period offer a fertile field for the creation of electronic wares. Electronics also offers indexing and access capabilities never before possible for this material. Shortly, electronics will also be able to assist neophyte users unfamiliar with Old and Middle English in finding primary material in EEBO, Early English Books Online. We will continue to attract researchers in the Middle Ages and Renaissance because as we are offering EEBO. The community of users also needs and uses traditional print material, both books and serials.

B. Relationships with Other Resources

1. On campus branch or format collections, if any

Special Collections collects facsimiles of medieval manuscripts

Special Collections contains materials published prior to 1800 about the Middle Ages

Fine Arts collects materials on medieval art and music

Maps collects atlases that are 50% maps or more

2. Regional or network resources, if any

Western Michigan University has a graduate level medieval studies program, hosts the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, and has the Institute of Cistercian Studies Collection. Part of the University’s rare book collection, the Institute of Cistercian Studies Collection contains medieval manuscripts, incunabula (books printed before 1501), and other pre-1800 books on permanent loan from American Cistercian (O.C.) and Trappist (O.C.S.O) monastic communities. The Cistercians originated in France in 1098; the collection includes all aspects of Cistercian history.

University of Michigan Libraries’ Special Collections contains 10,000 papyri dating from 1000 B.C. to 1000 A.D., the largest and most distinguished such collection in the Western hemisphere. They also have about 250 manuscripts, mostly written on vellum, in Greek, Latin, Coptic, Hebrew, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Syriac from the periods of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. These include early printed editions of the Bible tracing the English text until the King James Version was published in 1611. Their Special Collections also contains 450 incunabula, specimens of the earliest examples of printing using moveable type, dating from 1456-1500.

C. Relationships to Resources Treated in Other Policy Statements

Fine Arts, Art collects works about medieval art

Fine Arts, Music collects works about medieval music

Maps collects atlases that are 50% maps or more. Medieval studies bibliographer may collect atlases less than 50% maps

Special Collections collects manuscript facsimiles and works published prior to 1800

Slavic studies/Eastern European, and Central Asian bibliographer collects works about the Middle Ages in Central and Eastern Europe and Byzantium

*Latin American/Iberian bibliographer collects works about the Spanish Middle Ages.

*Bibliographer for Germanic studies collects works about the German Middle Ages.

*Linguistics bibliographer collects re language development and history.

*Philosophy bibliographer collects works about medieval philosophy

The medieval studies bibliographer may collect, or recommend, any English language resources in the starred (*) disciplines/areas above.

III. ANALYSIS OF THE SUBJECT FIELD

A. Chronology of the Subject: Emphases/Restrictions

Not past the Renaissance; not prior to 476, topic wise. Medievalism is collected also, that is, writing about the period.

B. Language of Resources Collected: Exclusions/Emphases/Translations

Materials are primarily in English. The Germanic, French, Italian, and Latin American/Iberian studies bibliographers collect works in these languages on this period. Translations into English are collected.

C. Geography of the Subject: Emphases/Restrictions

We emphasize collection of works about the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Western Europe, in general, and material about medieval and Renaissance British Isles history and literature. Works about the medieval and Renaissance period in what are today France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, etc. which are published in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, etc. are collected by the Germanic, French, Italian, and Latin American/Iberian, etc. studies bibliographers.

D. Format of the Resources collected: Restrictions, if Any: None

E. Date of Publication of Resources Collected: Emphases, if Any

We emphasize collecting of current imprints of secondary sources. We collect new editions of primary sources of the period, especially those with new, updated, scholarly introductions and bibliographical apparatus. We collect expensive, printed, manuscript facsimiles in a limited way.

IV. LEVELS OF COLLECTING INTENSITY

Conspectus Call # Ranges	Subject	Level	Note
BR, BX	Medieval and Reformation Christianity	3a
CB 3-9,15-20,25,61-67	General works	3a
CB 206	Celtic	2
CB 216-220	Anglo-Saxon	2
CB 351-369	Medieval, Ren. and Reformation	3b
CB 440-end	Special topics, if related to Medieval, Ren. and Reformation	3b
CC	Medieval and Renaissance archaeology	2
CD	Archival guides and resources	3a
CE	Medieval and Ren. calendars	1
CF	Med. And Ren. numismatics	0
CN 755	Med. And Ren inscriptions	0
CR	Med. And Ren. heraldry	1
CS	Genealogy	0
CT	Biography of Med. and Ren people	3a
D 101-234	Medieval and Renaissance history	3b
HC	Med./Ren. economic history	3a
HD	Med/Ren. organization of work, land use, agriculture, laborers, wages, trades	3a
HE	Med./Ren. transportation, communication	3a
HF	Med./Ren. commerce, trade, business	3a
HG	Med./Ren. finance, money	3a
HJ	Med./Ren. public finance	3a
HM	Med./Ren. social systems, institutions, and social change	3a
HN	Med./Ren. social history and conditions	3b
HQ	Med./Ren. family, marriage, women, sexual life, sex roles, human relationships, children, youth, etc.	3b
HS	Med./Ren. societies, clubs	3a
HT	Med./Ren. communities, cities, recreation, social classes, serfdom, urban/rural life	3a
HV	Med./Ren. social and public welfare, fairs, crime/delinquency, charity, the poor, Mendicancy, protection, assistance, relief, etc.	3a
JN	Med./Ren. political institutions, administration	3a
K,KB,KBR,KBU,KD- KDK,KJ-KKZ	Med./Ren. law	3a
LA,LF	Med./Ren education	3a
PE 1-896	Med./Ren history of English language	3a
PN	Med./Ren. literature in general, in English	3a
PR	Med./Ren. English literature	3a
Qs	Med./Ren. science	3a
Rs	Med./Ren. medicine	3a
Ss	Med./Ren. agriculture	3a
Ts	Med./Ren. technology, crafts, cookery	3a
U,V	Med./Ren. military and naval	2
Zs	Med./Ren books, writing, paleography, manuscripts, dev. of printing, libraries	2
Z 5579.5	Bibliography of Med./Ren.	3b
Z 6203	Bibliography of Med./Ren.	3b

V. COLLECTION MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Policies for management, renewal, conservation, and preservation of the medieval studies collection are those in effect for the Main Library as a whole.

Duplicate copies not checked out in ten years may be withdrawn. Materials needing binding, rebinding, repair, conservation, preservation, or relabeling may be identified during weeding projects, by the bibliographer, or when returned from circulation by the circulation staff.