Introduction: The Archival Turn in Medieval Iberian Studies

This special issue outlines the advances, challenges, and prospects brought forth by the making and extensive use of digital archives in medieval scholarship, with particular attention to Iberian medievalism. The first four contributions discuss, respectively, the making of two different archives devoted to lyric corpora (one with a textual emphasis, the other one with a material focus), a census of vernacular translations, and the evolution of a database project since its analog origins. The last four articles consider the significance of archives for the discipline and analyze the not so desirable consequences of digital reading practices, the opportunities for transnational archives to resurge, the enhancement of glossatorial activities, and the promotion of manuscript studies through digital scholarship.