Library Guides: Byzantine Studies: Primary Sources

Full-text Collections

Full-text collections include complete texts from a particular literary genre, time period, or covering a particular subject. In most of these collections, individual texts or bodies of texts are searchable, enabling you to trace ideas, subjects, words, and phrases to particular works or authors, as well as throughout types and genres of texts.

Annotated Justianian Code (and Novels)
English translation of the Codex and Novels by Fred H. Blume, an attorney and Wyoming Supreme Court Justice. Completed in 1952. An expanded print edition of the Codex based on this translation, with commentary:
The Codex of Justinian : a new annotated translation, with parallel Latin and Greek text based on a translation by Justice Fred H. Blume / Bruce W. Frier, General Editor
Loeb Classical Library
Website will include more than 520 volumes of Classical Greek and Latin literature.

TLG, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae This link opens in a new window
Contains virtually all ancient Greek texts surviving from the period between Homer (8th century B.C.) and A.D. 600, and a large number of texts deriving from the period between A.D. 600 and 1453. Topics include Greek literature, history, and culture.

NOTE:Users who want to access the full corpus of TLG need to create an additional user account. If you go to the main TLG landing page, look for the Full Corpus link at the top of the page (between the About link and the TLG Canon link) to create an account or log in.

Manuscripts

A manuscript is any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to being mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. Before the arrival of printing, all documents and books were manuscripts. Manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, explanatory figures or illustrations.

Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams
Provides "textual and contextual data of book epigrams (or: metrical paratexts) from medieval Greek manuscripts (seventh to fifteenth century)."
Dumbarton Oaks: Manuscripts on Microfilm Database
The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library holds almost two thousand microfilm rolls that are reproductions of medieval and early modern manuscripts, the originals of which are held in institutions around the world. This database allows researchers to search for specific manuscripts represented within the collection.
Greek Codicology/Paleography
Comprehensive annotated bibliography by Immaculada Pérez Martín from Oxford Bibliographies Online.
Pinakes
Descriptive database of Greek manuscripts hosted by the Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes. The base Pinakes brings together the manuscript tradition of earlier Greek texts in the XVI th century, mainly from library catalogs worldwide. It was founded in 1971 at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto . Since 1993, the Greek Section of the Institute of Research and History of Texts , in Paris, manages and continues to enrich it.
Princeton University Digitized Greek manuscripts
Simple database linking to images and descriptions of all fully digitized Greek manuscripts.
Printed Catalogs Online
List of online Greek manuscript catalogs maintained at Dumbarton Oaks.
Pyle : a gateway to Greek manuscripts
Pyle is a collaborative tool for teaching and scholarly research in the field of Greek palaeography and codicology; it aims to collect scattered resources from various individuals and institutions, gradually adding new information, materials and services. Pyle also aims to promote interaction among scholars, students and all other persons interested in ancient and medieval Greek manuscript books, providing a place to share knowledge, ideas, projects and news.

Professional Organizations and Associations

Professional organizations help established members work together to define its problematics and research focii. They help members new to a profession and students conducting research in its areas to understand the broad shape of the field.

American Numismatic Society's MANTIS: Byzantine
The ANS collections database contains information on more than 600,000 objects in the Society’s collections. These include, coins, paper money, tokens, ‘primitive’ money, medals and decorations, from all parts of the world, and all periods in which such objects have been produced.
Byzantine Coinage
The exhibition enables the viewer to follow the development from the realistic portrait type, characteristic of Roman art and coinage, to a more idealized and highly stylized representation of the ruler. The specimens illustrated here suggest other major changes that affected the Byzantine coinage over eleven centuries. The most important change was the growing evidence of Christian themes and symbols; first the cross and cross-bearing insignia became more and more ubiquitous, while later on religious figures—initially Christ himself, then the Virgin and saints—dominated the iconography.

Byzantine lead seals by G. Zacos
Publication Date: 1972

Byzantine Studies Association of North America
The Byzantine Studies Association of North America, Inc. (BSANA) is composed of three parts: the U.S. National Committee for Byzantine Studies (USNCBS), the Canadian Committee of Byzantinists (CCB), and the Byzantine Studies Conference (BSC).

A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Sales by Nicolas Oikonomides
ISBN: 0884021505
Publication Date: 1986-01-01
This volume was designed to assist sigillographers and non-specialists in their study of Byzantine lead seals, especially in the problems of dating. By developing and demonstrating typological and stylistic criteria that can be used in dating seals, this volume is an excellent resource in the use and study of seals as historical data. Oikonomides consolidates the achievements of the sigillographic tradition extending from Schlumberger onwards, and brings his own expertise in key areas of Byzantine history to bear on the problems.
Le corpus des sceaux de l'empire byzantin by Vitalien Laurent
Publication Date: 1963-1981
Covers the history of the Church of Constantinople, including the clergy and monks. Also includes information about Tte autocephalous archdiocese (Cyprus and Bulgaria), and the Eastern Patriarchates (Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem).

Online Catalogue of Byzantine Seals
An ongoing project to record the 17,000 Byzantine lead seals held by Dumbarton Oaks and publish them online. The details contained on the thousands of seals preserved shed light on many aspects of the Byzantine world, principally the structure of its civil, military, and ecclesiastical administrations, the careers and locations of its officials, and the responses to the ever-changing fortunes of the empire over its millennial existence.
The Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies
The Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies (SPBS) was established with the object of furthering study and knowledge of the history and culture, language and literature of the Byzantine Empire and its neighbors.