The Houghton Library's distinguished collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts represents a significant resource for the study of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Western Europe. Assembled through gifts and purchase over the past two centuries, this collection includes works in Latin, Greek, and most of the vernacular languages of Europe that are the primary sources for the study of the literature, art, history, music, philosophy, and theology of the periods.
This Web site provides strategies for searching Houghton's medieval manuscripts as well as links to bibliographies related to these materials that were compiled by the Library. Permission to publish from any manuscript is granted at the discretion of theCurator. See Houghton's Reproductions and Permissions page for more information.
Digitization of Houghton's manuscripts was begun with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities through its grant to the Digital Scriptorium and is being continued with funding from Harvard University's Library Digital Initiative and from the Harvard College Library. As digital versions become available, we will provide links to them from this Web page as well as from the HOLLIS catalog.
The Houghton Library collection of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts is divided into a number of shelf classifications, including language and subject classifications MSS Dutch, Eng(lish), Fr(ench), Ger(man), Gr(eek), Ital(ian), Judaica, Lat(in), Port(uguese), Span(ish) and Syriac. Please remember that these are both language and subject classifications. For example, MS Eng 736, Statutes of the Order of the Garter, is written in Latin; MS Gr 23, the tragedies of Euripides, is a Latin translation, and MS Lat 235, a medical, astrological and alchemical miscellany, includes recipes in Middle English. There are also four named collections: MS Riant, Richardson, Typ(ography), and Widener. Inc(unabula) are fifteenth-century printed books included here for their extensive manuscript annotation.
Houghton Library staff are in the process of supplying complete bibliographies for each of the manuscripts in these collections. You can access available bibliographies through this Web page as well as through the HOLLIS record for each individual manuscript.