What is MEMDB?
The Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank is a project
established at Rutgers University and originally cosponsored by
the Research Libraries Group (RLG), Inc. Its aim is to provide
scholars with an expanding library of information in electronic
format on the medieval and early modern periods of European
history, circa 800-1815 C.E.
MEMDB contains five large data sets, three pertaining to
currency exchanges and two pertaining to prices:
- Currency Exchanges (Metz) contains monetary data from
Rainer Metz, Geld, Währung und Preisentwicklung: der
Niederrheinraum im europäischen Vergleich, 1350-1800
(Frankfurt am Main, 1990).
- Currency Exchanges (Mueller) contains monetary data
supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The
Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt,
1200-1500 (Baltimore, 1997).
- Currency Exchanges (Spufford) contains all currency
exchange quotations compiled by Peter Spufford and published
in his Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986).
- Prices (Metz) contains grain prices supplied by Rainer
Metz and compiled for the printed edition of Dietrich
Ebeling and Franz Irsigler, Getreideumsatz, Getreide- und
Brotpreise in Köln, 1368-1797 (Köln, 1976).
- Prices (Posthumus) contains prices drawn from primary
sources and published in Nicholaas Wilhelmus Posthumus,
Nederlandsche Prijsgeschiedenis (Leiden, 1943).
Who is involved in MEMDB?
MEMDB is codirected by Prof. Rudolph M. Bell of Rutgers
University and Prof. Martha C. Howell of Columbia University. It
has three centers in Europe: at the University of Leiden in the
Netherlands with Prof. Willem P. Blockmans, at the University of
Leuven, Belgium, with Prof. Eddy van Cauwenberghe, and at the
University of Cologne with Dr. Rainer Metz. Its advisory board
includes these individuals along with J. H. A. Munro (University
of Toronto), Edward Peters (University of Pennsylvania) and Peter
Spufford (University of Cambridge).
A Web Interface to MEMDB
Originally, MEMDB was only available on CD-ROM. This version
is available from the NISC corporation.
At Rutgers University, the Scholarly Communication Center
(SCC) has developed and is maintaining this Web interface to
MEMDB, which is accessible without restriction to the academic
community and to the general public for research and educational
purposes.
Who supplies MEMDB's data?
MEMDB's holdings principally come from databases donated by
scholars. The Bank functions as an efficient means of publication
for valuable work that is clumsy to publish in microform and
expensive to publish in print. MEMDB also incorporates data via
the optical scanning of published works (copyright permission
obtained as necessary). When databases are incorporated, all of
the original documentation is preserved, if appropriate.
Background texts and source references are displayed on-screen
using links to pertinent data items.
Researchers who are starting a project which ultimately may
be suitable for MEMDB should consult with MEMDB in advance.
Although MEMDB can accommodate sets of data sets produced using
various software and programming packages, compatibility issues
should be considered.
How to cite MEMDB?
Copyright to the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank (MEMDB) is held
by The Research Libraries Group, Inc., and Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey. (C) 1996 The Research Libraries Group, Inc.,
and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
The retrieval software, database format, indexes, and arrangement of
data are the property of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
and may not be duplicated by any means. This web-site and any of the
contents herein may not be used as part of any other web-site, online
database, or commercial product.
Individuals may freely use, replicate, and rearrange the data itself
for non-commercial scholarly research and teaching purposes. All we
ask is the usual scholarly citation, both of the web-site itself -- as,
for example, recommended in Online! A Reference Guide
to Using Internet Sources, Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1997) -- and of the original data set donors. For instance:
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Peter Spufford, "Currency Exchanges from Handbook of Medieval
Currency Exchange" (London, 1987), in Rudolph M. Bell and Martha
Howell, eds., "The Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank,"
Oct. 19, 1998,
<http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb> (Nov. 15, 1998)
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(The elements of the citation, in order,
are:
(1) donor name, (2) donor title of publication, (3) editors of
website, (4) title of website, (5) date website was last revised,
(6) URL, (7) date user accessed website.)
Optimal view of this Web Site
This Web site is best viewed with Netscape 4.5 or Above.
Home-Page Logo
Our home-page logo is a copy of Quentin Massys's Moneylender and His
Wife (1503-1505). The original is at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
Images were downloaded from The Web Gallery of Art.
How to Contact us?
Enquiries and comments may be addressed to
Prof. Rudolph M. Bell
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