The most comprehensive tool for Church prelates in the Middle Ages

The lists of bishops produced in Eubel's Hierarchia catholica medii aevi... ab anno 1198 and Gams' Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae still represent the most comprehensive tool for studying the prelates of the Church from the Early Church to the Reformation.
National Fasti-projects are supplementing and enhancing these two works with greater detail and information on office-holders in individual bishoprics. Other prosopographical work has taken place on members of individual religious orders, on members of universities and commentators on set-texts at the schools.

The Europa Sacra project aims to integrate as many of these resources as possible into an interlinked, searchable whole. The first phase is the creation of a section Pontifices et Curia Romana and a Series Episcoporum which involves the provision of Eubel and Gams online in a searchable format.

Key features of Europa Sacra

• Complete coverage of Church prelates obedient to Rome to 1503 from C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi... ab anno 1198 [Münster, 1898ff] and P.B. Gams, Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae, vol. 1 [Regensburg, 1873])
• For the first time 'Eubel' and 'Gams' available online
• Information on all 1300 medieval bishoprics, archdioceses and patriarchates of the early, patristic and medieval Church obedient to Rome
• Prosopographical information on 18,507 bishops, archbishops and patriarchs for the period 1198-1503; and all those cited by Gams for the period to 1198
• The columns in the printed volumes have been parsed into thirteen separate fields, the key ones of which are individually searchable
• Data in discrete fields, with harmonized forms, allowing consistency for searching. The fields supplied include:
  • for Bishops: Latin Name (fore- or Christian name, and family or surname); Religious Order; Previous Appointment or Status; Cause of Vacancy and Source; Date of Start of Appointment, Method of Appointment; Date of End of Appointment; Reason for Termination; Notes
  • for Dioceses: Latin name; Modern Placename; Country or Region: Status in Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; Wealth; Notes
• Searchable word-forms have been harmonized (e.g. forms and sequences of dates in Latin into (Y)YYY-MMM-DD format), in order to correct errors in the original text and to permit comprehensive searching. Variant forms of many words (e.g. c., ca., circ., circa) have been standardized, to facilitate comprehension and translation by users
• Misspellings and other errors in the original text have been invisibly corrected

For more information, please contact us at brepolis@brepols.net