For Authors

To submit an article for consideration use the red “submit manuscript” button on this page.

For more information about Journal of Medieval Worlds please visit our website: https://online.ucpress.edu/jmw

Our current CFP can be found here:
https://app.scholasticahq.com/conversation/questions/call-for-submissions-the-journal-of-medieval-worlds-volume-3-1-2

Additional information on manuscript submissions (content, style guide, art submissions guidelines, citations, etc.) and the peer review process may be found below.

Note to Contributors of Articles

The Journal of Medieval Worlds (JMW) is a double-blind, peer-reviewed, online international journal devoted to scholarship on a wide range of topics pertaining to a Global Middle Ages, widely and expansively defined. It is not an open access journal.

Articles should not be previously published or submitted elsewhere for publication. They should demonstrate a mature and full command of the scholarly literature and available sources. They should proceed beyond the presentation of these materials to make original interpretations and draw new conclusions. Articles should range between 6,000-16,000 words (including notes and captions) and not exceed twenty illustrations. Shorter publications (including pedagogical reflections, interventions, translations, or bibliographies) should be around 4,000 words. Book and exhibition reviews should be around 2,000 words. Please use gender-inclusive language (i.e., humanity, not man, people, not men) and be sensitive to harmful language in both your modern and medieval sources. When in doubt, err on the side of empathy.

Authors are required to comply with University of California Press Accessibility Guidelines and University of California Press Artificial Intelligence Guidelines.

Manuscript Submissions

Manuscripts should be submitted online via Scholastica at https://jmw.scholasticahq.com. Authors will need to log in using an existing Scholastica account or create a new one in order to submit. For an overview of working with Scholastica as an author, please feel free to consult the Author Guide provided by Scholastica. Any technical or software questions should be directed to Scholastica customer support.

Contents of the Initial Submission
Initial submissions must include:

Abstract as a Word file
Text and accompanying endnotes as a Word file
Captions with illustration sources as a Word file (if needed)
Low-resolution scans of the images (if needed), uploaded as individual files, as explained below. Do not place images together on a text document. If an article is accepted for publication, you will then be required to provide high-resolution TIFF files (see instructions below).

Form of the Manuscript
JMW will follow a policy of double-blind peer review. With an author not knowing the identity of the readers and vice versa. To avoid self-identification the author’s name (or authors’ names) should not appear on the manuscript or be used in the file name of any electronic submission. All files should instead be named with a shortened title of the article. Cite works by yourself in the third person; do not include personal notes (acknowledgements, thanks, references to oral presentation, etc.). You may add these later, once the article is accepted.

The abstract, text, endnotes, and captions/sources must be double-spaced and formatted for printing on US standard letter-size paper (8½ x 11 inches). Pages must be left-justified and numbered consecutively throughout each file. Do not use automatic numbering for the caption list or numbered lists.
In no more than 250 words, the abstract should summarize the argument and define the methodological approach of the article.

Editorial Miscellany

Spelling: use current American Standard English spelling and typographical practice. JMW uses the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (http://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com) for reference points.
Names and titles: after the first mention, the last name of a person, will suffice unless clarity requires a title or additional name.
Numbers and dates: use figures rather than spelled-out numbers for cardinal numbers over ten and for all measurements. Form the plural of decades without an apostrophe: “1950s” rather than “1950’s.” Dates should be given in the following forms: “25 December 800,” “25 December,” “December 800,” and “798 – 99.” Please use BCE. and CE in place of BC and AD, both placed after the year (i.e., 476 CE). Acronyms should not have periods within them, though titles should retain the full stop (e.g., Dr. not Dr). All contributions should use the Oxford comma.
Modern languages: For modern languages outside of English, please consult The Chicago Manual of Style for capitalization and citation guidelines. Please make sure to include all diacritical marks as appropriate.
Ancient languages: JMW will print citations in original languages. Be sure to check these citations very carefully both before submitting your final manuscript and when you receive your proofs. Transliteration of words should follow the conventions of each discipline, ensuring that only a single mode of transliteration is used consistently throughout the article.
Dimensions: use figures rather than spelled-out numbers and spell out units of measurement: “100 feet,” “43 centimeters,” “40 Roman miles.” English or metric units may be abbreviated: 100 ft., 43 cm (no periods with metric abbreviations). If giving metric measurements, also include US conversions.
Quotations from languages other than modern English must be translated in either the text with the original in the footnotes, or with the original included in the body. Isolated non-modern-English words should be italicized. Personal titles, names of buildings, monuments or rooms, institutions (Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge), and the like are not italicized.
Please resolve all other editorial issues by consulting The Chicago Manual of Style (17th Edition–standard format, not author-date) or the editors.

Citation Formats

The aim of citation is clarity and scholarly verification: in the end, it is the author’s responsibility to make sure that such references are accurate and will serve to instruct and aid the readers of JMW. When in doubt, more information is better.
Please avoid any idem/eadem and ibid. citations, and instead use the standard shortened citation (including page number) of a work.

Due to the global nature of the work involved, we understand that these basic citations might not cover every example of cited work. In the case your article requires a citation format not found directly in this guide, please follow the conventions of your discipline, generally following traditional Chicago Style Format.

JMW does not require a separate Bibliography. Therefore, notes should include full citations for the first appearance of a text, and short titles thereafter.

Modern Texts:
Notes should be formatted according to the rules set out in the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style following the traditional, not author-date, guidelines. Abbreviate the title of this journal as JMW. Any other such abbreviations in the notes should be spelled out on first mention.

Full Note Examples:

Book:
Author, Title (city of publication [include state or country if not commonly known]: publisher, date of publication), page numbers.

Example: Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 55.
Example: Samantha Kelly, Translating Faith: Ethiopian Pilgrims in Renaissance Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2024).

Edited Book:
Author, Title (city of publication [include state or country if not commonly known]: publisher, date of publication), page numbers.

Example: Liz Herbert McAvoy, ed. Anchoritic Traditions in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 111.

Book with Multiple Authors:
Author and Author, Book Title (city: publisher, date).

Example: Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books, 2010)

Translated Book:
Author, Translated Book Title, trans. Translator First and Last Name (city: publisher, date).

Example: Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

Journal Article:
Author, “Title of article,” Journal Title volume number:issue number (year of publication): page numbers.

Example: William Chester Jordan, “Etiam Reges, Even Kings.” Speculum 90:3 (2015): 613–34.

Essay in a Collection:
Author, “Title of Article,” in Title of Collection, ed. Full name of editor(s) (city: publisher, date), page numbers.

Example: Kisha Tracy, “Speech: Medieval Representations of Speech Impairments,” in A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages, eds. Jonathan Hsy, Tory V. Pearman, Joshua Eyler (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023), 120-36.

Electronic Sources:
Provide all of the relevant information mentioned above for the media type (books, article, etc.). Also provide the complete URL.

Example: Kate Golembiewski, “Some Whales May Have Been Wiped Out by Medieval Europeans,” New York Times, September 15, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/science/european-whales-extinction.html.

Short Form:
Short forms of citation may be used for repeated sources. For short form, include author’s last name, title, and page number.

Medieval Texts:
Parenthetical or noted references to medieval texts should refer to the author (when known), the title of the work (italicized), and relevant numerical reference separated by periods (books, chapter, verse, etc.). Use Arabic numerals, not Roman, throughout (see the examples below).

Critical editions. To ensure scholarly accuracy, authors publishing with JMW should cite critical editions of medieval texts when possible. Please spell out the full title in the first citation and subsequent reference to the short title.
Translations should generally be by the author of the article. If someone else’s English translation is cited in the article, that translation must be referenced in full (as a modern work: see above on citations of secondary literature). In subsequent citation, the author and title of the translation, with appropriate page number, may be placed in parenthetical notation with the critical edition (see above on subsequent citations of secondary literature).
Please be consistent in the method of citation employed.

Example notes:

Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe (Early English Text Society Original Series 212) Ed. S. B. Meech et al., (London: Oxford University Press, 1940).
Jerome, Epistles 84.3.3 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 55:123). See also Jerome, Praefatio in Pentateucho 43. Line number follows Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. R. Weber et al., 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Würtembergische Bibelanstalt, 1964), here 1:3.
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa. Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah: Texte Arabe, accompagné d’une traduction. Ed. and trans. C. Defrémery and B. R. Sanguinetti. 4 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1853–1858).
Isidore of Seville. Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX. Ed. W. M. Lindsay. 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911).
Heldris de Cornuälle. Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance. Ed. and trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi. (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1992).
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 1613, Menologion of Basil II, p. 28.
For subsequent, short-form citation: Vat. gr. 1613, p. 28.
[Note: This manuscript is paginated not foliated]
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402, Ancrene Wisse, fol. 44r.
[Note: this text has an actual title. Otherwise, skip this insert.]

Captions (including illustration sources):

Illustrations should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned in the text.

The order of information is: figure number, designer (if known), name of the building or object, location, date, brief description (if necessary), and source (using the wording prescribed by the copyright holder, if necessary). Subsequent references may be shorter than the first one.

Example:

Figure 1 Mosaic above the Imperial Door in the narthex of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. Photo by H. A. Drake.

Illustrations:
If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author must provide high-quality illustrations. They must follow the specifications below.

Digital images (preferred format)

300 dpi minimum at 5 inches wide or 3.6 megapixels. Images need not exceed 1200 dpi.
To support zoomability, resolution must be high enough to allow identification of relevant details, usually 600 dpi or higher.
Saved as RGB for color, or grayscale for monochrome. Color is preferred.
Saved in TIFF format.
Line art must be scanned at 1200 dpi in bi-tonal mode (1-bit).
File name should include the primary author’s name and figure number.
Upon acceptance, all images will need to conform to the University of California Press Accessibility Guidelines. Alt-text for images is mandatory.

Scanning images from books or other publications results in lower quality images. Please avoid using scans, but if their use is absolutely necessary, the author is responsible for descreening (when scanning or in Photoshop) and alerting JMW to the problem.

Video and Audio:
Video

Resolution: Recommended: 1280 x 720 (16 x 9 HD) and 640 x 480 (4:3 SD). There is no required minimum resolution; in general the higher resolution the better. For older content, lower resolution may be unavoidable.
Bit rate: Because bit rate is highly dependent on codec, there is no recommended or minimum value. Videos should be optimized for resolution, aspect ratio, and frame rate rather than bit rate.
Frame rate: The frame rate of the original video should be maintained without resampling. Pull down and other frame rate resampling techniques are strongly discouraged.
Codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred
File types: .3gp, .avi, .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .flv, .swf, .mkv
File size: Up to 1 GB
Duration: Up to 10 minutes
File name should include a key work from the title and figure number
Upon acceptance, all video files will need to conform to the University of California Press Accessibility Guidelines.

When in doubt, convert files to MPEG4 video with MP3 audio, or follow YouTube guidelines.

Audio

Codecs: MP3 or AAC preferred
File Size: Up to 100 MB
Duration: Up to 10 minutes
Sampling rate: 44.1 kHz. For older content, lower frequencies may be unavoidable.
Bit Rate: 128 kbps preferred. For older content, lower rates may be unavoidable.
Channels: 2 (stereo) preferred.
File name should include a key word from the title and figure number
Upon acceptance, all audio files will need to conform to the University of California Press Accessibility Guidelines.

The Publishing Process for Accepted Articles

When an article is accepted for publication, the editors will provide detailed instructions about the requirements for final submission. The final submission must include illustrations that meet the standards outlined above.

Upon acceptance, the manuscript will be copyedited to conform to the JMW house style. The copy editor will send copyedited articles to the author to review and approve; copyedited book reviews will be sent to the book review editor for review and approval.

Author’s Agreement and Permissions
When a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author will be sent an author’s agreement that must be signed and returned to the editor. Authors must also obtain permission to reproduce illustrations when necessary and pay copyright fees and other costs. Copies of the written permissions should be attached to a copy of the captions/sources lists and accompany the signed author’s agreement.

Queries
If you have questions about the format of a submission or you wish guidance as to whether a subject is appropriate for JMW, please write directly to the editorial team at JMW_editorial@ucpress.edu.

Guidelines for Obtaining Image and Permissions
JMW requires that authors clear rights to images for reproduction in the Journal of Medieval Worlds. You may need to obtain both a loan permission from an image lender (e.g., a museum or a photo bank such as Art Resource) and a copyright permission from the rights holder for the work (e.g., an artist or agent).

Artworks whose creator died more than 70 years ago are often no longer in copyright. For such works, the only copyright may be that of a photographer who created the photo of the artwork. Or there may be no photographer’s copyright–if, for example, you take the photo yourself. If there is no copyright, then you only need to rent or purchase or take a photo, and the paperwork needs only to cover that transaction.

If the artist or architect died less than 70 years ago, or if the work was created by a corporate entity (e.g., an archeological services company) fewer than 125 years ago, copyright is still in effect. (Copyright has this length of term in most countries worldwide). In such cases, you need to obtain permission from the rights holder as well as rental of a photo.

Tips for Obtaining Image Permissions

Begin to request pictures and permissions as early as possible. Some sources are slow to respond to requests.
Find out who handles permissions for a given artwork or museum. If you need help understanding this process, contact the editor.
Scope of rights: request world English-language rights.
Request online/digital permission as well. Some lenders are uncomfortable granting permission for online use. You can explain to them that JMW is archived permanently on the University of California website.
As a scholar publishing in a nonprofit academic journal, you can and should negotiate fees. Many rights holders ask high fees, but most will lower them for a scholarly purpose.
When submitting your final manuscript and images, enclose copies of all the signed permissions and any other documents you receive from rights holders and image lenders. Please write your name and the corresponding figure number at the top of each permission document (fig. 1, fig. 2, etc.) Since you are legally responsible for clearing rights, you should keep the originals permanently. If the deadline for the pictures has arrived and you have the pictures but not all the paperwork, please send the picture with your manuscript, those documents you have, and a letter explaining the status of the outstanding permissions. Forward copies of the remaining documents as soon as they arrive.
Art photographed from a book. Most books print “picture credits” in the front or back, indicating the source of each image. Be sure to consult the credits section of a book before you scan an image from it. If there is no credits page, and the work or photo of the work is not out of copyright, then you may need to write to the permissions department of the publisher to request contact information for the rights holder.
The publisher of a book is usually not the copyright holder for an artwork reproduced in the book. The museum that owns an artwork is usually not the copyright holder for that artwork, though it may assert copyright over a photo of that artwork. Thus, loan forms for the rental of a photo, scan, or transparency are not necessarily the same as copyright permissions.
Lengthy text excerpts may also be in copyright. Fair-use laws permit you to quote within reason (and at length in a review of the book), but in general if you quote at length from a copyrighted text (including a modern copyrighted translation of an old text), you should request permission from the copyright holder (usually the author or publisher)

Authors are also encouraged to consult the University of California Permissions Resources for Journal Authors page.

Notes to Writers of Book and Exhibition Reviews

Reviews are solicited directly by the journal. Reviewers are free to express their own opinions, but the editors retain normal editorial responsibilities, including the right of rejection.

The length of reviews should not exceed 2,000 words unless otherwise specified by the review editor.

Reviews should include a description for the book’s or exhibition’s contents as well as the reviewer’s critical assessment. Book reviews must be headed with this information: author of the book, title, place of publication, publisher, date, number of pages, number of color and black-and-white illustrations, price, and ISBN. Exhibition reviews must be headed with the following information: exhibition title, museum name or exhibition venue(s), location (city and state or city and country), complete exhibition schedule dates; if an exhibition catalog is also reviewed, please provide bibliographic information as for book reviews. The review author’s name and institutional affiliation should appear at the bottom of the text.

All text, including book review headings, shall be double-spaced. Manuscripts should conform to the requirements laid out in the “Notes to Contributors of Articles.”