Database Guide - Medieval and Early Modern Sources

Medieval and Early Modern Sources (MEMSO) is an essential resource for the study of Britain and its place in the world during the medieval and early modern period (c. 1100-1800). It is a digital repository of state papers, chronicles, accounts and correspondence including original manuscripts from the National Archives, such as acts, annals, calendars, charters, close rolls, diaries, histories, laws, letters, manuscripts, pipe rolls and sagas. It is regularly updated with new digitized content.

“The ability to read and analyse texts and other primary sources, both critically and empathetically, while addressing questions of genre, content, perspective and purpose” is one of the key skills required of historians. (QAA Subject benchmark Statement, 2019) MEMSO provides access to key primary resource material straight to your laptop, enabling you to access and compare multiple texts, as well as look for key words or topics in a way in which printed resources and manuscripts do not. Digital research can transform the way that we look at and interprete the past.

• 1. Go to LibrarySearch 
     
     
  2. Log in using your CCCU username and password. If you are away from campus, or connecting with your own device over Wi-Fi, you will need to include @canterbury.ac.uk after your CCCU username.
     
     
  3. Select Find Databases, then click on M, finally click on the link to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) to open it in a new tab.

• Keyword searching allows you to combine one or more terms e.g. If you were interested in finding out about the consumption of wine on feast days you could type wine feast
  
  
• Advance searching allows you to modify searches e.g. if you were interested in limiting your search to feasts that took place in Canterbury you could type “Canterbury feast”~10 which will look for all instances where the words Canterbury and feast are separated by no more than 10 words. By using proximity searching you are increasing the likelihood that your results will match your enquiry.
  
  
• If you wanted to find out more about feasts in Lincoln or Canterbury you could type Lincoln | Canterbury . This will find sources containing Lincoln or Canterbury or both.
  
  
• If you wanted to find all articles which mention Canterbury but not the Archbishop, you could type Canterbury !archbishop
  
  
• You can also limit your search by date e.g. if you were only interested in sources from the 13th and 14th century, you could set date parameters of 1200 to 1300.
  
  
• Once you have opened a book or manuscript image, you can zoom in and out, rotate, print and download by clicking on the PDF icons.
  
  
• The navigation pane outlines the structure and content of the source and may include a front page, contents, chapter headings and an index, allowing you to go directly to the relevant section.
  
  
• You can search within a single book by typing keywords into the search box found in the book window’s toolbar.
  
  You can open and work with multiple ebooks and manuscripts rather than just one at a time.
  
  
• You can open up any collection of manuscripts and any book at the same time, which makes tracking down printed versions easier.
  
  
• You can save books, manuscripts and favourite pages to a Personal Bookshelf by registering as a user. Your content will appear in the special ‘Bookshelf’ area in the MEMSO toolbar, and appear every time you visit MEMSO. Books can be removed by clicking the red icon to the right of every title.

Try searching MEMSO by following the steps outlined below. You’ll practice using some of the most common functions and be ready to search for information for your assignments.

1. Find out if the area of Wincheap in Canterbury has been mentioned in any of the sources. Use the phrase search and type the term Wincheap. How many results do you find?
   
   
2. Can you find an example where Wincheap has been spelled differently? Now search again with the variant spelling of Wynchepe. How many results have you found this time? Now try Wenchepe.
   
   
3. Compare the three lists of sources. How many of these results relate to the place or to a person of that name. Look particularly at the dates and types of sources. Do you notice anything signficant? Can we date the change in spelling of the place name?
   
   
4. Reflect on the type of information appearing in your search. How will you use this information in your assignments?

MEMSO can be used with the Dolphin Supernova accessibility suite, which provides magnification, screen reading and navigation or with Freedom Scientific’s JAWS screen reader. All features can be accessed by keyboard. Consult ‘MEMSO Accessibility and Keyboard Control’ in the MEMSO help module for more information. 

Your Learning and Research Librarian will be able to help you make the best use of online resources. For detailed guidance, book a tutorial via the Learning Skills Hub.