History of the collection L04

The most relevant intervention in the management of the collection of the former department of Medieval History (and before that of the Medieval History Seminar) took place in the early 1960s, when (the base of) the current location system was established and the books present at that time were rearranged according to this list and classification. This location system tries to classify the books first into a general category (with letter code) and then further into a certain subcategory (letter and number codes). This is often far from conclusive and there are also several overlaps (e.g. directories or archive guides are often in the series where they belong in terms of subject, such as ES, instead of in the R or IC series). Moreover, this system is clearly a child of its time and certain modern works prove difficult to categorise (e.g. works on the history of mentality). Here and there, categories were added over time (see for instance the addition of the category Gender under ES.09.I, after the Miscellaneous under ES.08.I). In addition, a number of separate categories or series have come into being or have been greatly expanded alongside or 'supplementary' to existing categories. These are often linked to specific research interests of staff members (e.g. the HG or DG series and parts of the N series) or to teaching assignments of lecturers in the department (see e.g. the HK series).

L04 at the time of the move in 2009

Among the most important and valuable series are the sources and source collections, as well as many, often rare, older works from the ES, AN, IR and K series.

In the autumn of 2013, the collection was transferred to the Faculty Library of Arts and Philosophy. Part of the collection was stored in the depot (mainly less topical works).

View of the Medieval History collection (Loveling wing)