Research Guides: Monumental Brasses (HC): Finding Background Information

Finding Background Information

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The following sources provide overviews of concepts, people, and issues important for the study of art in the Middle Ages. They are a quick way to begin getting background information and to identify some current points of debate.

When using an article in an encyclopedia or handbook, always check the bibliography for further reading at the end of the article. It will provide a selective list of the books, articles, and, frequently, Web resources considered to be the most up-to-date and reliable.

Background on Monumental Brasses

Bibliography (from the Monumental Brass Society)
Brass Rubbing and Monumental Brasses
Introductory website from the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Includes images, material on social history, and a database.
Brass Rubbings Collection
Hamline University has a database and website featuring its collection of more than one thousand rubbings. The bibliography and glossaries accompanying the database are especially valuable. Note also that you can search by tomb date in the PDF listing of notes.
Brass Rubbings in the Spurlock Museum
The museum at the University of Illinois has 205 brass rubbings in its digital collection with descriptions and bibliography.
Bulletin of the Monumental Brass Society
This index to the material published in the first 100 issues (1972-2005) provides subject access primarily by geographic area.
Medieval Source Material on the Internet: Funeral Monuments
This resource lists focuses on England and on brass monuments in particular. Note in particular the references to the county histories which we have in print in the basement tier of Magill.

Handbooks

A Companion to Medieval Art by Conrad Rudolph (Editor)
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ISBN: 1405102861
Publication Date: 2006-04-10
This book brings together cutting-edge scholarship devoted to the Romanesque and Gothic traditions in Northern Europe. Contains over 30 original theoretical, historical, and historiographic essays by renowned and emergent scholars. Features an international and ambitious range - from reception, Gregory the Great, collecting, and pilgrimage art, to gender, patronage, the marginal, spolia, and manuscript illumination.
Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends by Albrecht Classen (Editor)
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ISBN: 9783110184099
Publication Date: 2010-11-16
Overview essays on scholarship concerning topics, terms, textual genres, and key scholars. See in particular:
"Art History" by Elena Gertsman
"Gender Studies" by Hiram Kümper
"Heraldry" by Heiko Hartmann

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of British Isles, C. 450-1450 by Gale Owen-Crocker (Volume Editor); Elizabeth Coatsworth (Volume Editor); Maria Hayward (Volume Editor)
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ISBN: 9004124357
Publication Date: 2012-05-03
This is a unique work that intends to bring together the latest research from across the range of disciplines which contribute to our knowledge of medieval dress and textiles. There is a clear need for an interdisciplinary reference work which will introduce readers to various sources of evidence, and give clear information about the most recent discoveries and interpretations and bibliographical guidance to readers.
Medieval England: An Encyclopedia by Paul E. Szarmach et al. (eds.)
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ISBN: 0824057864
Publication Date: 1998-05-01
This valuable reference work offers concise, expert answers to questions on all aspects of life and culture in medieval England-art, architecture, law, literature, kings, commoners, women, music, commerce, technology, warfare, religion, and many others.
Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages by Robert E. Bjork
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Publication Date: 2010
Brief entries on many different subjects in medieval studies across disciplines.
Women and Gender in Medieval Europe by Margaret C. Schaus (Editor); Margaret Schaus
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ISBN: 0415969441
Publication Date: 2006-09-20
From women's medicine and the writings of Christine de Pizan to the lives of market and tradeswomen and the idealization of virginity, gender and social status dictated all aspects of women's lives during the Middle Ages. Masculinity in the Middle Ages is also addressed to provide important context for understanding women's roles.

Subject Guide

Margaret Schaus

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Subjects: Africana & Black Studies, Cities, Classics, History, Latin American & Iberian Studies, Political Science, Writing Program

Biographical Dictionaries

Biography & Genealogy Master Index
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Provides citations to reference sources and important retrospective works that cover individuals both living and deceased from every field of activity and from all areas of the world.

The complete peerage: of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant
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Dictionary of prominent families
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
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Contains biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond,from the earliest times to the year 2001. Articles focus on noteworthy people from all walks of life.