The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, edited by Paul Halsall, is a major free online collection of primary source texts for the study and teaching of medieval history. Hosted by the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies as part of the larger Internet History Sourcebooks Project, it has been online since 1996 and remains actively maintained.
Its core purpose is to give teachers and students ready access to public-domain and copyright-permitted translations of medieval documents so they do not have to rely on expensive commercial sourcebooks. Many of the texts are nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century translations that have entered the public domain; the site also includes more recent translations prepared specifically for the project.
The Sourcebook is organized around three main index pages—Selected Sources (short classroom-length excerpts), Full Text Sources, and Saints’ Lives—plus numerous thematic and chronological sub-indexes covering topics such as the end of Rome, Byzantium, Islam, the Crusades, economic life, intellectual life, Jewish life, sex and gender, and the Renaissance and Reformation. Supplementary resources include law texts, maps, and a list of medieval films.
A related but separate project, the Online Medieval Sources Bibliography, helps users locate modern printed and digital editions of medieval texts. The site also links to companion sourcebooks for ancient and modern history as well as specialized collections on African, East Asian, Islamic, Jewish, women’s, LGBT, science, and global history.
Because the collection is deliberately large, the editors emphasize clear indexing so users can reach useful material with minimal clicking. The project is independent of Fordham University even though the university supplies server space; Fordham is not the institutional owner and bears no legal liability for the content.