Encyclopedias

  • The Ecole Initiative
    The Ecole Initiative is a “Hypertext Encyclopedia of Early Church History,” extending up to the Reformation. The site is no longer maintained but still provides some useful content: a Glossary containing short (100-200 word) descriptions of several hundred topics; a much shorter index of Articles; and a Chronology.
  • Internet Medieval Sourcebook
    In addition to numerous texts (see below), the Internet Medieval Sourcebook also provides useful indices and supplementary material, such as select Secondary Sources and Maps and Images.
  • New Advent: The Catholic Encyclopedia
    This is an online version of the old Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907-12), which contains many articles on early Christian topics.
  • ChurchRodent: Rich Tatum’s Glossary of Christian History
    This little hypertext encyclopedia, while not a work of rigorous scholarship, is a lot of fun and fully searchable. ChurchRodent is a product of the site author’s Church History class project for which he wrote a paragraph on every index entry for Bruce Shelley’s Christian History in Plain Language.
  • ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
    A larger project of which the Internet Medieval Sourcebook is a part. While ORB contains comparatively little on early Christianity per se, it does have related materials on Late Antiquity (see below) and, of course, medieval Christianity.
  • Biographisch-Bibliographischen Kirchenlexikon (BBKL)
    Comprehensive in scope, this encyclopedia includes many entries on both early Christian authors and contemporary German theologians, church historians, and biblical scholars.