HST 407/507 - The Medieval Church and Reform
Portland State University
Spring 2004

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Research project timeline

4/12 - Decide on topic and arrange meeting with instructor as needed
4/29 - 1-page preliminary statement of thesis and bibliography due; form research groups
5/10 - Revised bibliography and thesis statement or introduction due
5/26 - Rough draft due, in class. Failure to furnish a complete draft will result in a deduction of 2/3 a grade from the final paper (e.g., A to B+)
6/2 - Presentation of research begins
6/8 – Presentation of research ends; final drafts of research papers due by 5:00 in my office.

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Essential guidelines

Please follow these guidelines when preparing your papers.  [NB: Basic guidelines apply to all students; grad students should plan on submitting papers around 20 pages in length; undergrads, around 15 pp.]

• Papers should be typed, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, and should have a title (title page optional).  Your bibliography, headed as "Works Cited," should appear last and should be paginated.
• You must follow an accepted citation format (e.g., Modern Language Association or Chicago; I have no preference, other than that you be consistent).  Footnotes and bibliographical references must conform to accepted styles of academic use.  I highly recommend to everyone Barbara Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. (U. Chicago Press, many reprints), which is widely available.  Another useful little tome is William Strunk and E. B. White's The Elements of Style (New York: Macmillan, many eds. and reprints), a short and inexpensive guide to writing.
• I expect that the majority of the sources you use will be secondary rather than primary.  However, as little original research is undertaken without reference to primary sources, you are welcome to incorporate primary source material into your papers.   I also expect that undergraduates will cite a minimum of 10 sources, grads about twice that number.  Bear in mind that these may be books, dissertations, articles from periodicals, or articles from standard reference works such as The Dictionary of the Middle Ages, in addition to primary sources.  Where appropriate you may access materials and sources from the Web.  However, you should exercise caution when using this resource (see below).
• Your paper must (as any serious history paper should) have a thesis. What this paper should not be is a subject report, in which you simply lay out various evidence and let it stand as interesting in its own right.  Based on your reading both for the class and for the paper, you should be able to formulate a broader argument about your subject and historical interpretations of it.  I do not expect completely original research from anyone—at the undergraduate level this is somewhat unrealistic, given our time constraints.  But you should be able to argue your way around a particular critical or historiographical issue and defend your argument with evidence drawn from and supported by your readings.

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Resources for medieval research at PSU

Internet resources

I have links to sites of interest from my personal web page (http://www.web.pdx.edu/~ott).  The basic starting point is the ORB (On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies, at http://www.the-orb.net/) site, where all materials on the web pertaining to medieval history are collected.  Two good sites for primary sources and links are The Labyrinth (www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/) and the Internet Medieval Sourcebook maintained by Paul Halsall (www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html).  For a clearing house of different medieval studies links (all disciplines), as well as many images and texts, see NetSerf (http://www.netserf.org/).  There are separate sites for the study of women and gender in the Middle Ages, as well as web sites devoted to aspects of monastic history.  [Note: Be extremely careful when using the web--the sites above are all fine, but there is a lot of misleading and just plain inaccurate information in cyberspace.  The web should be used only as a supplement to research, not as its central component.  I will check all web sites cited in your bibliographies when I read your final drafts.]


Bound reference works, journals, and bibliographies at PSU (highly abridged)

The Cambridge Medieval History, 8 vols. (Cambridge UP, 1957-59).  Note that there is a newer edition to this; we may have individual volumes.
Dictionary of the Middles Ages, 13 vols., ed. J. Strayer (1982-1989). For use when dealing with technical terms or particular events and people, or for orientating oneself to a subject. [D114 D5 Gen. Ref. on 2d floor]
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, 4 vols. [DS35.53 .O95 1995]
Encyclopedia of Islam (1913) [DS37.E5] Old but still useful.
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, 2 vols., ed. Andre Vauchez, et al. (Chicago, 2000) [D114 E53 Gen. Ref. on 2d floor]
Encyclopedia of Medieval Church Art, ed. Edward Tasker (London, 1993) [N7943 A1 T37]
Index Islamicus. Quarterly bibliography of publications on Islam. [Z7835 M6].
International Medieval Bibliography. An annual compilation, of which we have a limited run of volumes (Jan. 1985-1992).  Fully indexed. [Z6203 I63]. Also on-line!
Lexikon des Mittelalters, 9 vols. + index.  A comprehensive encyclopedic work, in German. [2d floor Gen. Ref.]
Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, et al (New York: Garland, 1998) [DA129 M43]
Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. W. W. Kibler, et al. (1995) [DC33.2.M44]
Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, ed. John Jeep (2000) [DD157 M43]
Medieval Heresies: A Bibliography (1960-1979), ed. Carl T. Berkhout and Jeffrey B. Russell (Toronto: PIMS, 1981)
Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Kleinenz, 2 vols. (Routledge, 2004) [In process.]
Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. Norman Roth (Routledge, 2003) [DS124 M386]
Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano, et al. (New York: Garland, 1993) [DL30 M43]
The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 17 vols. (1967-1996) [BX841 N44]

Selected Periodicals at PSU

Cahiers de civilisation médiévale (1971-pres.) [CB3 C3] In French.
Church History (v. 42-72, 1973-present). [BR140 A45].  One or more articles per volume on medieval ecclesiastical history.
Crusades (v. 1-2, 2001- ).  On order and not yet available.
Hagiographica. Journal of Hagiography and Biography (v. 1-10, 1994-2003) [BX 4655.2 H34]
Islamic Quarterly (1961-pres.)
Journal of Ecclesiastical History.  One or more articles per volume on medieval ecclesiastical history; oriented toward British Isles
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (1971-pres.) [CB3 J58]
Mediaeval Studies (1974-pres.) [D11 M44] Primarily devoted to medieval literature and textual studies; published by the Medieval Institute at the Univ. of Toronto.
Medieval Prosopography (1993-pres.) [D115 M4]
Medievalia et Humanistica (1970-pres.) [D111 M5]
Past and Present (1952-pres.) Every issue contains at least one article on the Middle Ages.
Speculum (1926-present).  The flagship journal of the Medieval Academy of America.  A complete index was compiled in 1988 of issues appearing to that point.
Studi medievali, 3rd series [PN661.S83] In Italian, with some articles in English
Studies in Church History [BR141 S84]. We have selected volumes only.  Most contain several articles on medieval history.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History (1964-pres.)
Traditio (1943-1991, 2001-).  Some missing back issues. [D111 T7]
Viator (1970-1992, 2002- ). Annual journal published by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA.  Some missing back issues. [CB4.V5]