Medieval Manuscript Facsimiles

A Catalog of Illuminated Manuscript Facsimiles in the Western Michigan University Libraries

The collecting of manuscript facsimiles at the University Libraries of Western Michigan began in 1961 with the creation of the Medieval Institute by Professor John Somerfeldt of the Department of History. At that time, Special Collections was a limited access area in the Libraries. In 1973, WMU added an Institute of Cistercian Studies (ICS) to its roster of centers and institutes. ICS combined Cistercian Publications with a distinguished collection of medieval manuscripts and early printed books on permanent loan from several Cistercian and Trappist monastic houses.

The numbers of facsimiles available in the ICS collection and in the University Libraries slowly began to increase. After a major renovation to the Waldo Library building in 1992, the ICS Library came to be housed within the new Special Collections Department. Since that time, and with the development of an art history program within the College of Fine Arts, the collection has grown to include both full and partial facsimiles, as well as a solid collection of secondary literature on various aspects of manuscript illumination and catalogues of collections. We have, for example, a complete run of the Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile.

This catalog includes full facsimiles held in Special Collections, and some partial facsimiles, which are located in the general collection (and are identified as such). The following list is arranged by the type of manuscript and alphabetically by title/place within each category.

View the Facsimilies List (PDF)

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