Medieval

The Nowell Codex, copied around 1000, contains the only surviving copy of Beowulf, the greatest Old English epic poem of 3,182 lin...

The largest surviving collection of Old English poetry, copied around 970 and given to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric in 1072....

One of the four great Old English poetry codices, copied in the late 10th century and somehow reaching northern Italy by the 12th ...

The only major collection of Old English biblical verse, copied around 1000 and named for Franciscus Junius who published it in 16...

The oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, dated 1008, written in Cairo by the scribe Samuel ben Jacob following the Tibe...

The Devil's Bible, the largest surviving medieval manuscript, 92 cm tall and weighing 75 pounds, made in early 13th century Bohemi...

The largest and finest surviving 12th century English Bible, made at Winchester between 1160 and 1175 by a team of six scribes and...

The great anthology of Middle High German Minnesang, compiled around 1300 in Zurich for the Manesse family. Its 137 full page port...

The largest surviving collection of medieval secular lyric, over 300 poems in Latin, Middle High German, and Old French copied in ...

The most complete manuscript of the Nibelungenlied, the German epic of Siegfried, Kriemhild, and the destruction of the Burgundian...

The single most important source for Old Norse mythological and heroic poetry, the Poetic Edda, copied in the 1270s in Iceland. It...

A picture book of the Old Testament made in Paris around 1240 for Louis IX, with over 280 paintings and almost no text. Its 13th c...

The most famous illuminated manuscript of the late Middle Ages, a book of hours made for Jean Duc de Berry by the Limbourg brother...

A tiny jewel of a book of hours made by Jean Pucelle between 1324 and 1328 for the French queen Jeanne d'Evreux. Its grisaille min...

The richest Dutch manuscript of its time, made around 1440 in Utrecht for Catherine of Cleves, duchess of Guelders. Its 157 miniat...

The chief manuscript of Homer's Iliad, copied around 950 in Byzantium with the full set of ancient marginal scholia, the commentar...

A 10th century copy of works of Archimedes, erased in 1229 and overwritten with a prayer book. Imaging since 1998 recovered unique...

One of only four surviving originals of the 1215 Magna Carta, the charter in which King John accepted that he was bound by law. Th...

The second oldest dated East Slavic book, written in Church Slavonic for Ostromir, governor of Novgorod, in 1056 to 1057. Its larg...

The oldest and finest surviving Maya book, a bark paper screenfold of astronomical tables, almanacs, and rituals, painted in the 1...

The longest surviving Maya codex, 112 pages of almanacs, horoscopes, weaving, hunting, and ritual scenes. Found in two fragments i...

A Maya screenfold of 22 leaves, long known as the Peresianus, preserving katun chronicles, zodiac constellations, and gods of the ...

Fragments of the oldest illustrated Tale of Genji, painted in the 12th century, a century after Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world's...

The largest paper encyclopedia ever compiled, ordered by the Ming emperor Yongle and finished in 1408 in nearly 23,000 volumes bou...

A lavish Passover Haggadah made in Barcelona around 1320, famed for its 14 pages of miniature paintings in gold, executed by Chris...

A 14th century illuminated Passover Haggadah from Catalonia, carried across Europe by refugee families and smuggled out of Nazi re...

The great survey of England ordered by William the Conqueror at Christmas 1085 and largely completed in 1086. Royal commissioners ...

Commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell of Irnham in Lincolnshire around 1325 to 1340. Its margins teem with scenes of rural English...

An early 15th century manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, prized for its careful text and lavish decoration. Painte...

Cotton Nero A.x is the sole surviving copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, bound with three other poems, Pearl, Cleanness and ...

A 12th century compilation devoted to St James, gathering sermons, liturgy, miracle stories, and the Pilgrim's Guide, often called...

A book of hours painted by the Limbourg brothers, Paul, Jean and Herman, for John, Duke of Berry, around 1405 to 1409, and their e...

Commissioned by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and his wife Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England, and made at Hel...

A copy of al-Hariri's Maqamat written and illustrated by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti in 1237, probably in Baghdad. Its nearly one h...