The Internet Medieval Sourcebook (IMSB) is an excellent digital library that covers more

than 15 centuries of world history by providing an adequate supply of primary sources for any

topic of interest to its visitors. The website’s design is fairly practical, offering its visitors a clear

navigational home page with categorized sections from the Medieval Era, the regions of that

time and references to the sociocultural aspects. At the same time, the site can be very

applicable for its wide variety of content which can supply with information most given

research topics on the Medieval era.

I spend enough time navigating this very inventing website and I can say with certainty

that every time I brought a random topic in my mind it did not take me more than 30 seconds

to find information about it. I searched for many topics, from the 4 th century’s The Covesion of

Constantine of Eusebius to The Laws Concerning Mashiach of Maimonides written in the 12 th

Century. One specific example was one of my favorite and generally one of the most

informative medieval primary sources, The Alexiad, the biography of Emperor Alexios I

Komnenos by his daughter princess Anna Komnene. It took only two clicks for me to reach the

desired content under the title “Komninoi”, where I could find all 15 books of the Alexiad.

The entire text of this biography is translated from the original Greek into English with

the translator having done a pretty good job using the most contemporary, vernacular English

to support the reader in his or her understanding of the content with familiar words or phrases.

This fact makes this primary source and others ideal for a research paper about the 11 th century

Eastern Roman Empire affairs and/or the First Crusade, although the absence of the original

Greek text may create debates about the essential meaning of certain words, paraphrasing of

statements and the wrong depiction of historical events. I found the website’s decisions not to
include the original languages from all of its primary sources to be its only weakness. Although

most students seek transcription for clarity and a good translation for understanding, it can be

crucial for scholars who need to delve deeply in to the culture and semantics of the respective

time to examine the original text whether that be in Greek, Latin, regional or tribal European

languages.

After I acclimated myself with IMSB, I switched over to the Online Medieval Sources

Bibliography (OMSB) which I found quite different to navigate from the prior due to its design

which makes it a search engine for specific sources or authors. When you search for an author

per say, the engine will give the opportunity to the visitor to read his /her work in an online

transcript or provide the links for the library that has a hard copy of the book or script. Many

searches for online transcripts link to the IMSB website which contains its own archive of

sources for its visitors where OMSB functions solely as a search engine.

I tested the website’s functionality by searching both sources and authors to examine

the platform’s design, whether is friendly to high demanding “digital natives” or whether it

requires a more patient attentiveness. OMSB requires very detailed input of information, when

it comes to the name of the author or the source. A single misspell or a missing letter from the

word typed on the search engine will bring no results, which may frustrate the visitor. Also,

searching for a broader compilation of sources during a specific era the results are limited. For

example, I tried a search by dates so I imputed as earliest date the year 300 and as latest 1200. I

expected to see a long list of links for sources, instead merely 23 links appeared with most

being books or academic journals. As a search engine website for academic research, OMSB

requires the visitor to be aware of what he or she needs to search for, and not be disappointed
if comes across inadequate variety of links for sources based on input. Although OMSB has

room for improvement, perhaps by including a keyword search feature and improving its

interface nonetheless it works very well in conjunction with IMSB to assist students’ educators

or other scholars to find primary sources for their work.

The third web resource, Epistolae: Medieval Women’s Letters, is an amazing, modernly

designed and practical site in which visitors can find the sources they are looking for or be

exposed to sources they may not be aware of. The website’s simplicity to navigate is

remarkable! It provides four easy ways to search for sources, by name in alphabetical order, by

title of the epistle, by following the genealogical tree with the major descendants of Henry I, or

by keyword search. Besides its simplicity in functionality, this web resource provides a short

biography for each author and the describes in short, the significance of each letter. In addition,

every letter is followed by the transcribed original (Latin) version, which gives the researcher a

complete source for his or her work.