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.
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