WELCOME!

Early Modern Resources is a gateway for all those interested in finding electronic resources relating to the early modern period in history. My intention with these pages is to bring together a wide range of online resources for this period. I have not intensively or extensively evaluated the sites; their inclusion here is not a guarantee of quality or historical accuracy. All the usual cautions concerning the use of online materials (or any other information source, for that matter) should be applied. Try this useful Guide.

My definition of 'early modern' covers the period roughly from 1500-1800. Roughly: if you want an idea of the sheer diversity of the term, have a look at the debate in the H-Albion discussion logs for May-June 2000. Equally, you could mull over the historian Peter Burke's thoughts on the subject. As he says, no one can agree on this one.

I only list resources that are free to access. I do not include sites whose only discernible function appears to be to persuade you to spend money, and I don't (except for a handful of good general reference sites) usually list the many sites that cover long periods of history and happen merely to include short sections on early modern topics: by 'early modern resources' I mean sites/pages that are primarily or substantially about early modern history.

If you know of a good resource that is not listed here, you can either email me or leave a suggestion here.

And NB: I cannot do your homework for you. If you can't find something to help you here, try Google or the Open Directory project. Or read some books.

Sharon Howard

 

LATEST ADDITIONS

 

Coin and Conscience: Popular Views of Money, Credit and Speculation
online exhibit of images that ‘trace society’s changing attitudes toward money from the Reformation and the Church’s injunctions against usury, to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of modern capitalism’ (Baker Library, Harvard College)

Cultures • Trade • Wealth  

Eighteenth-century Audio
a site of audio recordings of 18th-century poetry, intended as a tool to aid students’ understanding of the meaning of a poem, provide a supplement to reading on the page, and reminder of the original aural context in which the poetry might often have been experienced (University of Mary Washington)

Poetry  

Scottish Economic History Database, 1550-1780
website making publicly available data collected during a project on Scottish wages and prices, 1550 -1780, in the following categories: crop yields, demographic, price and wage data, weather statistics (A.J.S. Gibson and T.C. Smout)

Agriculture • Commodities • Scotland • Work  

Robert Burns
biographical site on the Scottish poet, featuring information about key manuscript and printed sources (National Library of Scotland)

Poetry • Scotland  

John Strype’s Survey of London Online
full-text electronic edition of John Strype’s 1720 Survey of London, complete with its maps and plates, as well as an introductory essay and bibliography (The Stuart London Project)

Britain • E-texts • Maps • Urban  

English Broadside Ballad Archive
site dedicated to early ballads in English, especially 17th-century broadside ballads; provides full transcriptions and images of the originals, search facilities, sung versions of ballads, and background essays (Early Modern Center, University of California-Santa Barbara)

E-texts • Print culture  

Italy on the Grand Tour
website for three exhibitions held in 2002 on the 18th century Grand Tour in Italy; contains overview and selected images (Getty Exhibitions)

Italy • Visual  

A Cuppe of Newes
News and resources blog from the Renaissance Research Group in the Department of English, University of Exeter.

Weblogs  

The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707
online edition of the proceedings of the Scottish parliament from the first surviving act of 1235 to the union of 1707; fully searchable database includes a wide range of records. Also provides historical background, tables of statutes, bibliography, etc (Scottish Parliament Project, University of St Andrews)

E-texts • Government • Scotland  

Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900)
digital resource relating to the history of copyright in five jurisdictions (France, Germany, Italy, the UK and US) for the period up to 1900 (DSpace@Cambridge)

Americas • Britain • E-texts • France • Law & Order