Ranulf Higden. Polychronicon. England, ca. 1375.

Ranulf Higden was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of St. Werburg in Chestershire, England. His Latin-language Polychronicon professes to be a universal history of the world from the beginning of time to 1342. As the most complete history available to the 14th century reader, it was a very popular text and remained so through the next century; London printers William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde both produced editions of the English translation of the Polychronicon in the 1480’s and 1490’s.

• Call number: Vault Collection Quarto 091 H534

Selected manuscripts in facsimile

Bestiary. England, 12th century.

Bestiaries were popular in the 12th and 13th centuries, particularly in England. A bestiary describes animals – both real and imaginary – and provides moral or allegorical interpretations of their characteristics or behavior.

• Call number: Rare Book Collection PA 8275 .B4 1982

The Dresden Sachsenspiegel. Germany, 14th century.

The Sachsenspiegel, or "Saxon Mirror," created in the 13th century, was the major text of laws used int he Holy Roman Empire. This facsimile reproduces one of four extant illuminated versions of the text.

• Call number: Vault Collection Quarto 340.55 D816 2002

La Commedia di Dante. Italy, late 14th century.

A reproduction of a highly-illustrated manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy.

• Call number: Vault Collection Folio 091 D236d 2009

The Ellesmere Chaucer. England, 15th century.

Facsimile of the famous illustrated manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, housed at the Huntington Library.

• Call number: Rare Book Collection Quarto PR 1866 .W66 1997