The Database of Middle English Romance is designed to facilitate easy access to the range and diversity of Middle English verse romances (excluding Chaucer's) as well as to the manuscripts which preserve them.
The Romances
All of the romances are listed alphabetically by modern editorial title, and each romance is provided with a detailed, full-page entry that includes, where available, the following information:
- date of composition;
- place of composition;
- IMEV (Index of Middle English Verse) number;
- form;
- a list of surviving manuscripts and early modern prints.
Each entry is also provided with a full plot summary and a list of modern editions (in chronological order; scroll to the bottom of the page for the most recent editions, although note that the most recent are not always the most authoritative or reliable editions). Links are provided to editions available online (as of April 2026); editions available via Internet Archive or JSTOR may require users to sign up for a free account.
Users can search the romances by:
- Plot summaries: enter a term of choice, in the keyword search box, to search all of the plot summaries (and titles) for things like geographical locations (e.g. Armenia), material objects (e.g. bed), historical or fictional personages (e.g. Charlemagne) or a particular animal (e.g. dog). This aims to encourage users to explore the often surprising connections between texts across the full corpus; although the plot summaries are not, of course, exhaustive.
- Form: choose from a drop-down list to find other romances which share the same verse form.
A note about the plot summaries: The content of individual romances can vary significantly from one manuscript version to another. The modern edition from which the summary is drawn is, therefore, indicated; if necessary (e.g. where editions reproduce multiple manuscript versions), the manuscript is also listed. Where the extant manuscripts are incomplete, key plot details have occasionally been added, in square brackets, from source texts.
The Manuscripts
The 2026 database, in a substantial enhancement of its predecessor (2012), additionally provides entries for all 137 manuscripts containing the romances listed in the database. These are linked to the entry for each romance (click on 'Contents', to the right of each manuscript listed) and are also available as a separate, browsable list. Each entry includes a full list of the manuscript’s contents, alongside information about its date and place of origin, its material support, and its size, plus a link to a digitisation of the manuscript, where available. All verse contents are provided with an IMEV number (or, if the item is not included in the IMEV, a DIMEV number), so further detail, including of published editions, can readily be found via the DIMEV (Digital Index of Middle English Verse).
Users can search manuscript contents by IMEV number and, using the keyword search box, by title or author.
A note about manuscript contents: The list of contents for each manuscript has been compiled from published sources. Practices of titling medieval texts are idiosyncratic, whether titles are attested in the original manuscript(s) or are the product of modern editors. With the exception of the titles of Middle English romances, the contents list for each manuscript has not been standardised and so the same text (or sometimes author) may appear under a different title (or name) in a different manuscript. Additionally, practices of foliation differ between editors/manuscript descriptions and between printed and digital sources (especially digitised manuscripts), so there will inevitably be some discrepancies between the Database's foliation and that found elsewhere.