Serial Bibliographies for Medieval Studies by Richard H. Rouse is a comprehensive annotated guide to the vast range of bibliographic tools essential for medievalists. As Rouse makes clear in his introduction, the challenge facing scholars is not so much the absence of information as its inaccessibility: the proliferation of specialized bibliographies across languages and disciplines often leaves even experienced researchers unsure of what exists and where to find it. Unlike classical studies, which benefit from a unifying resource like *L'année philologique*, medieval studies are served by a multitude of narrower bibliographies with little coordination among them. Some fields, such as art and ecclesiastical history, are richly covered though frequently duplicated, while areas like economic history, English studies, or medieval technology remain thinly represented. Rouse's guide addresses this unevenness by identifying, describing, and contextualizing nearly three hundred serial bibliographies across the full range of medieval studies.
Organized into eleven major divisions--from general, national, and regional bibliographies to specialized listings in art, music, intellectual history, linguistics, law, science, and medicine--the guide provides detailed annotations on coverage, organization, and distinctive features of each resource. The work deliberately avoids evaluation in favor of accurate description, though bibliographies offering particularly thorough coverage are marked with an asterisk as obvious starting points for research. By including not only conventional lists of publications but also bibliographic essays and accessions lists, Rouse broadens the definition of bibliography to encompass all systematic attempts to organize knowledge. The result is a practical and indispensable reference tool, designed both for beginning graduate students learning how to navigate the field and for established scholars seeking to keep abreast of the growing maze of resources.
Serial Bibliographies for Medieval Studies thus serves as a map to the bibliographic infrastructure of medieval scholarship and a vital contribution to the improvement of bibliographic control in the humanities.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.
