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Brian Vetruba
Contact:
Office: 1a Wilson Library
309 19th Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55455
Email: bvetruba@umn.edu
309 19th Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55455
Email: bvetruba@umn.edu
612-625-8161
Use this to assist you with completing your assignments for HIST 3704W: Daily Life in Europe, 1300-1800
What are primary sources?
They are sources which provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They present original thinking, report a discovery, or share new information.
They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented. They are from the time period involved and have not been filtered through subsequent interpretation or evaluation.
Examples: autobiographies, letters, diaries, musical scores, works of art, speeches, court records, government documents, articles in newspapers that describe events.
Primary Source Databases
- Defining GenderProvides access to a vast body of original British source material that will enrich the teaching and research experience of those studying history, literature, sociology and education from a gendered perspective.
- EuroDocs: Online Sources for European HistoryLinks to European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. Video, sound files, maps, photographs and other imagery, databases, and other documentation are also available.
- Early European Books : printed sources to 1700Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through the close of the seventeenth century. The resource represents a diverse array of printed sources and opens the door to some of the Europe's most significant collections of early printed books.
- EEBO: Early English Books Online (Page Images)Over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).
- EuropeanaSingle access point to millions of artworks, artefacts, books, films and music from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
- German History in Documents and Images/Deutsche Geschichte in Dokumenten und BildernPrimary source materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present. It comprises original German texts with new English translations, and a wide range of visual imagery.
- Internet Medieval SourcebookIncludes a wide range of texts which address elite governmental, legal, religious and economic concerns, now also includes a large selection of texts on women's and gender history, Islamic and Byzantine history, Jewish history, and social history.
- Making of Modern Law: Foreign Primary Sources, 1600-1970 This link opens in a new windowThis collection includes historical statutory materials (codes, statutes, session laws) and analogous materials from canon law and Roman law. Commentaries that provide interpretive analysis of these primary sources are also included. A broad range of jurisdictions and legal systems are covered.
- Making of the Modern WorldUse this source to find primary sources and full text books from the 1460-1850 period with focuses on economics interpreted in the widest sense, including political science, history, sociology, and special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing.
- Medieval Family LifeImages and transcripts of the Letter collections of the Paston, Stonor, Plumpton, Armburgh and Cely families from 15th century England. Letter topics include trade, warfare, arranging advantageous marriages, arguments between parents and children, matters of inheritance, births and deaths, estate management, legal disputes, domestic finances, women and their role in the family and everyday social and domestic life.
- Medieval Travel WritingMedieval manuscripts dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries with a focus on travel to the Holy Land, Middle East, India, and China which document attitudes of people across Europe in the medieval period, shedding light on issues of race, economics, trade, militarism, politics, literature and science. Sources detail the journeys of travelers from Marco Polo to John Capgrave, and the stories of legendary figures such as Prester John and Sir John Mandeville.
- Medieval and Early Modern Studies Online (MEMSO)Search Medieval and Early Modern Studies Online (MEMSO) to find primary sources from the medieval and early modern periods and books concerning the study of medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland.
- All Primary Source DatabasesList of all primary source databases available to University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff.
Primary Source Books
Selection of Books:
A Sourcebook of Early Modern European History by Call Number: eBook; also available in printISBN: 9781351243278Publication Date: 2019-01-23Spanning the period from c. 1450 to c. 1750, this book is divided into six subject areas: I. The fabric of communities: Social interaction and social control; II. Social spaces: Experiencing and negotiating encounters; III. Propriety, legitimacy, fi delity: Gender, marriage, and the family; IV. Expressions of faith: Official and popular religion; V. Realms intertwined: Religion and politics; and, VI. Defining the religious other: Identities and conflicts.
Voices from the Italian Renaissance: A Sourcebook by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781003816638Publication Date: 2024This book contains over a hundred selections of primary sources-the historian's raw material in the form of memoirs, letters, treatises, sermons, stories, poems, drawings, paintings, and sculpture. Here are eyewitness accounts of cold-blooded murders, lavish court pageants, the Sack of Rome, and the Black Death; first views of Michelangelo's Sistine frescoes and glimpses of the surface of the Moon through Galileo's telescope.
The Black Death: the Great Mortality of 1348-1350 by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780312400873Publication Date: 2005This volume offers a wealth of documentary material focused on the initial outbreak of the plague that ravaged the world in the fourteenth century.
Finding Primary Source Materials in Library Catalog
Using the Libraries Search enter as a SUBJECT search the name of the country, event, individual, group, plus a term of what you're looking for, such as "Speeches", "Correspondence", "Diaries", "Personal Narratives", and "Sources". The term "Sources" refers to a collection of primary source materials. Here are some examples:
Last Updated: Mar 31, 2025 11:45 AM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/HIST/3704W