This shelf holds historical primary sources — chronicles, annals, memoirs, and travel accounts — in complete public-domain editions, distinct from the library's scripture, folklore, and philosophy shelves. The material here is not scholarship written about the past; it is, as far as an English translation allows, the past speaking for itself: monks keeping a year-by-year record, a marshal dictating his memory of a crusade, an ambassador writing home. Subshelves are organized by region, period, or documentary tradition as the collection grows.

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