Franciscan Studies and the Repercussions of the Digital Revolution: A Proposal

Abstract

Almost 22 years ago the Franciscan Authors Website: A Catalogue in Progress was published on-line for the first time. This internet site, which is a co-production of Maarten van der Heijden and myself, and which can still be found at its original internet address (http://users.bart. nl/~roestb/franciscan/), is meant to develop into a digital successor to the Franciscan authors catalogues of Lucas Wadding (Scriptores ordinis minorum) and Sbaraglia (Supplementum et castigatio ad scriptores trium ordinum S. Francisci). The site is by no means complete, but it does contain biographical information, bibliographical references, and information on the works produced by a large and growing number of Franciscan authors active between the early thirteenth century and the French Revolution. Although we try to keep abreast of the latest secondary literature on each and every author, the main emphasis is on the works written by the friars in question: both the manuscripts in which they can be found and the old and modern editions available to modern scholars. At present, and in the foreseeable future, it is a simple html-based private website, as it has never been possible to interest any institution into hosting it as an open access research instrument for Franciscan studies, and to guarantee its continued existence. This has blocked efforts to transform the site into a fully searchable database. In essence, it was and remains a slowly growing alphabetical list of authors with as much information as possible, and with a series of additional bibliographies concerning the study of medieval and Franciscan historiography, preaching, exegesis en geographical studies, and with references to secondary literature on Franciscan libraries, convents in various provinces, and comparable topics of relevance. At the very beginning, most of the information concerning manuscripts and editions of Franciscan authors was obtained by perusing manuscript catalogues, reference works such as Schneyer’s Repertorium of sermons, the Verfasserlexikon and the Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques, as well as the bibliographical references in journals devoted to Franciscan life and learning, such as Archivum Franciscanum Histori-