What sources were used to collect the data present in the database?

Titlepage of Las Etimologías en la tradición manuscrita medieval estudiada por el Prof. Dr. Anspach

The basis for this database was provided by José María Fernández Catón’s Las Etimologías en la tradición manuscrita medieval estudiada por el Prof. Dr. Anspach (1966). This catalogue provided the initial 353 items to seed the database. In the first stage of expansion and cleaning of the database, this basis was corrected and expanded by data about seventh- and eighth-century manuscripts from E.A. Lowe’s Codices latini antiquiores (1934-1971) and about ninth-century manuscripts from Bernhard Bischoff’s Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (1998-2017). In this way, it reached the total of 441 items. The database was then further corrected, refined and expanded with the help of other manuscript catalogues, handlists, online databases and specialized studies.

The most important systematically mined printed resources include:

  • F. Arevalo, S. Isidori Hispalensis Opera Omnia IV, Rome, 1797.
  • A. Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano: secoli IX, X e XI, Rome, 1956.
  • C. H. Beeson, Isidor-Studien, Munich, 1913.
  • B. Bischoff, ‘Die europäische Verbreitung der Werke Isidors von Sevilla’, in Isidoriana, León, 1961, pp. 317-44.
  • B. Bischoff, Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit I-II, Wiesbaden, 1960-80.
  • C. Codoñer, ‘Transmisión y recepción de las “Etimologías”’, in Estudios de latín medieval hispánico. Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Latín Medieval Hispánico, ed. by J. Martínez Gázquez, Ó de la Cruz Palma, C. Ferrero Hernández, Florence, 2012, pp. 5-26.
  • H. Hoffmann, Schreibschulen des 10. und des 11. Jahrhunderts im Südwesten des Deutschen Reichs, Hannover, 2004.
  • L. Holtz, Donat et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical, Paris, 1981.
  • S. Keefe, Water and the Word: Baptism and the Education of the Clergy in the Carolingian Empire I-II, Notre Dame, 2002.
  • S. Keefe, A Catalogue of Works Pertaining to the Explanation of the Creed in Carolingian Manuscripts, Turnhout, 2012.
  • M. Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library, Oxford, 2006.
  • A. Millares Carlo, Corpus de códices visigóticos, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1999.
  • H. Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta. Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Hilfsmittel 15. Munich, 1995.
  • M. Mostert, The Library of Fleury. A Provisional List of Manuscripts, Nijmegen, 1989.
  • B. Munk Olsen, L’étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles I-II, Paris, 1982-85.
  • E. Pellegrin et al., Les manuscrits classiques latins de la Bibliothéque Vaticane I-III, 5 vols., Paris, 1975-2010.
  • E.-J. Tardif, ‘Un abrégé juridique des Étymologies d’Isidore de Séville’, Mélanges Julien Havet, Paris, 1895.
  • S. Zapke, Hispania Vetus, Bilbao, 2007.

The most important systematically mined digital resources include:

In many cases, the Innovating Knowledge team relied on tips about unidentified manuscripts and information about known manuscripts provided by other researchers and research projects. Their contribution is acknowledged in the header section of the detailed records of manuscripts.

From the start, the ambition of the project was to examine as many of the manuscripts as possible personally. Such personal autopsy often reveals details, which are missing from the available secondary literature and allowed to make observations about innovative features of a given manuscript. Nevertheless, the Innovating Knowledge team could not examine all manuscripts included in the database in person. Therefore, in many cases, the information presented in manuscript records entirely depends on examining digital facsimiles or was entirely supplied by catalogues and secondary literature. As a result, some manuscript records are incomplete or contain apparent discrepancies. The hope of the Innovating Knowledge project is that all manuscripts included in the database will be eventually examined in person.