About the Edition

Feature

Tag

Comment

Manuscript portion

<p>

This means that all of the text in Julius B XIII is one ‘paragraph’; and the Faustina B IX text is all another ‘paragraph’.

Folios

<pb n=f.14v/>

Each folio is tagged as a ‘page break’, with a ‘number’ value indicating the relevant page.

Line breaks

<lb/>

In the transcription these follow the manuscript. In the translation, these are provided only where a line break is certainly required (such as at the beginning of a new annal); for everywhere else in the translation, there are no line breaks and so the text should adjust to fill the screen. Blank lines are tagged as line breaks: e.g., three blank lines is <lb/><lb/><lb/>.

Superscript

<hi rend="superscript">

Italics

<hi rend="italic">

Bold

<hi rend="bold">

Coloured ink

<hi rend="red">

Most of the manuscript ink is (essentially) black, but there are a few examples of red and blue ink, mostly initial letters and some rubrics. Colour decoration on paragraph markers or other characters has not been tagged but can be observed in the digital images.

Footnotes

<note>

Hyperlinks

<ref type="http" target="[link]">

Tables

<table>

There are two instances where the electronic text has been organised as a table to best represent the manuscript text layout: Faustina B IX, ff. 38v and 63v.

Scribal profiles

<handShift scribe="sc024"/>

Every scribal profile ID has three numbers (e.g., sc001, sc031, sc124). ‘Unassigned scribe profiles’ are rendered as "sc000". The editor is occasionally credited as "scEditor".

Scribal profiles which appear on the images for that page but not in the edited text

<note type="scribe" target="sc016"/>

All scribal profiles have been marked up on the digital images; only some of their text has been edited (read more here). For the text which has not been edited (e.g., Scribal profile 16's work, which is John Leland's signpost rubrics) the scribal profiles still need to be acknowledged in the XML of that folio to allow them to be marked-up on the digital images. For this, the list of non-edited profiles are given as <notes> at the top of the folio in the XML.

Insertions (i.e., additions to the text block)

<add place="above">

These are rendered in slashes for insertions \above/ or /below\ the line of writing.

Marginal textual additions

<add place="top-centre">

These can appear in the ‘top’, ‘bottom’, ‘left’ or ‘right’ margin. For the top and bottom margins, there are three options of placement: ‘left’, ‘centre’ and ‘right’. For the left and right margins, the tagged text appears in the XML adjacent to the text in the text block. Symbols have often been inserted by the editor to indicate the intended position of marginalia in the text block (e.g., * /\ /. \\ // .’.).

Deleted text

<del rend="cancelled">

This is text indicated for deletion in the manuscript somehow, e.g., having been underpointed or scored through. It is all rendered with a strikethrough. It is represented in the translation where feasible.

Erased text (legible)

<del rend="erasure">

This is where ink has been scraped off the parchment and we can see what the letters were. This is rendered as faded, lighter coloured text in the digital edition.

Erased text (illegible)

<del rend="erasure" unit="char" quantity="1"/>

This is where ink has been scraped off the parchment and we can’t tell what it once was. This is rendered as faded, indistinct characters in the digital edition. For the translation, this tag includes erased text which is legible in the Latin but can’t easily be represented in English.

Alignment

<hi rend="right-aligned">

By default the text is left aligned. Sometimes text has been tagged as ‘right’ or ‘centre’ aligned, to try and represent the manuscript text’s positioning on screen.

Vertical writing

<add place="right-vertical">

There is vertical writing on Faustina B IX, ff. 5v, 6v, 10v, 12v, 13v, 16v, 17v and 19r.

Gaps in the text block

<gap reason="space" unit="char" quantity="3"/>

‘Gap’ here means the scribe left a space within the text block. Sometimes this was intentional (e.g., space left for an unknown name); other times the reason isn’t clear (possibly to avoid some damaged parchment; possibly to leave space for text to be added later). Gaps like this are rendered with a line ____ so that they can be distinguished from general white space in the edition (compare with ‘indentation’, below).

Indentation of the text

<gap reason="indent" unit="char" quantity="3"/>

Unlike the ‘gap: space’ tag above, this ‘gap: indent’ tag is rendered with white space only. It is ultimately an editorial assessment about whether text is ‘indented’ (and therefore should be rendered as white space) or a ‘space’ (rendered with a grey line).

Holes in the parchment (where this interrupts text)

<gap reason="hole" unit="char" quantity="3"/>

Obviously in the translation these will not be aligned properly on the page, but have been included to be indicative of some disruption to the text.