The Devonshire Manuscript/Introduction to the Encoded Materials

A Note on the Markup

The entire Devonshire Manuscript, its witnesses, notes, and critical apparatus have been marked up in TEI P5, the standard XML markup language for text archiving and exchange in the humanities, and augmented with Renaissance Electronic Texts markup. As far as is possible, a diplomatic edition is intended, so there is a strong orientation towards the physical appearance of each page, including recording such aspects as indentations, centring, brackets, and spaces. All omissions, truncations, and deletions in the original are retained. Text that is indecipherable is marked by the use of the <gap> element. The choice element, containing <orig> or <sic> paired with<expan> or <corr> marks text that is in some way possibly erroneous, idiosyncratic, or easily misunderstood with a clarification. Not marked are ligatures, dropped r, long s, situations in which lines are placed over words or letter combinations.

Scribal Marks and Abbreviations

Abbreviations (eg. elided letters) and expansions (brevigraphs and contractions) are marked as such in both their contracted and expanded forms. Words, wordforms, or compounded words in which letters are elided by the scribe are designated as abbreviations and encoded with the element<abbr> and the attribute expan= recording both the construction of the original and the expanded format. Words or characters that indicate that letters have been omitted by the use of scribal marks or superscripted characters, or that are understood to be standard abbreviations for the time, are encoded with the element <expan> and the attribute abbr=giving both the expanded form and a description of the contracted form. Editorial and contextual notes further describe especially unusual scribal usages. The expanded form is given in modernized spelling, since spelling was unfixed at the time and several permutations are equally valid. Also, scribes use the same form to indicate one of several possible meanings, therefore the expanded form is based on a study of the context.

Deletions, Additions, and Lacunae

The element <del> is applied to text that is in some way indicated by a scribe to have been cancelled or deleted, with the use of the attribute type= to indicate the nature of the deletion. The most common reason is a cross-out, which is a penstroke (or strokes) that have been applied over text, crosswise or slantwise. The element <add> is applied to text that is inserted or added (either at the time by the originating hand, as in the case of deletions and self-corrections or later by an annotating/correcting hand in which case there is an accompanying <handShift/> indication) to text, with place attribute to describe placement, if not inline, and the attribute rend= (rendition) to describe situations of overwriting. In situations where a scribe forms a character and then writes over it or changes it to form a different character, the cancelled character is described as overwritten and the replacement character is described as overwritten. When a line is deleted or is a false start, the line is not given a line number. Instead, the corresp attribute is used to tie the deletion or fast start to the replacement line. The element <note> is used for additions to the text that are marginal and for editorial notes. They are delineated by first, type (editorial, annotation, scribal), and secondly, place on the page (in the case of an annotation). Scribal corrections or additions within the body of the text are distinguished from annotations, which are encoded with the element <note> and the attribute type= with a description of annotation to distinguish scribal notes from editorial notes, which are encoded with the element <note> and the attribute type= with a description of editorial. In addition, scribal annotations carry the attribute place= with a description of their situation on the page, or relative to the poetic unit. The presence of annotations is noted in the <head> section of each <div> and, if the hand is not the main scribal hand, a <handShift/> element marks the shift.

The element <gap> records indecipherability, for one reason or another: faintness, obliteration (for example, by an ink blotch), deletion (when it so thorough that the deleted letters cannot be deciphered), invisibility (when the letters enter the spine of the book, erased, or torn. The element <supplied> records instances in which a character is supplied by the editor on reasonable grounds that it exists. The element <unclear> is used to identify a transcription that is difficult to ascertain. The element damage is used for occasions where the text has suffered some damage, most usually due to ink blots. The element <space> is used to record deliberate gaps left by the scribes, with attribute of extent, with the value indicating the approximate number of characters or lines.

In line with the orientation toward the physical aspect of the manuscript, graphical and bibliographical descriptions form an important component of the file. For example, we record details of page presentation, such as torn pages and a repaired leaf and we recognize of the former position of a page. For instance, what was once likely to have been the inside front cover, before the manuscript was rebound (at an unknown time) is noted as such. Besides the description of such presentational aspects on a page as centring, indentation, brackets, and spaces, for example, a scribes use of facing pages (on which some poems are placed in their entirety) is noted. The element <hi> with the attribute rend= designates letters or passages that are in some way graphically distinct from the text, as in the case of abnormally large or elaborate capital letters or characters that are placed in a supralinear position relative to the baseline, for instance.

Contributors

Personal names of historical interest, mostly of poets or scribes, are identified as such and refer back to a <listPerson> item using a key tag. Within the listPerson descriptions, each person is identified with a ref pointer using the Library of Congress Authority number, and a second URI ref to the Dictionary of National Biography. Modern researchers or scholars who are referred to in the text, including the project team, are listed in a second listPerson element, with the attribute of type="modern". When names or initials appear within the text, often as a subscript to an entry (possibly indicating authorship or responsibility), an editorial note gives the probable identification of that individual. Each name so identified is within a <name> element, with the attribute key. In some cases, a name or initial is used to indicate authorship; in those instances, the attribute type="author" was added to the name tag. Courtesy of the English 397 class at the University of Alberta.

Designators

Each poem has a descriptive section <head> in which the poem's incipit, author (where known) along with editorial notes on the hands and annotations, as well as any descriptive information about the page orientation. Each poem has a unique designator (id=) within the text. (In the title element, abbreviations are silently expanded and capitals are not distinguished for relative prominence.) That designator is composed of the in-house abbreviation for the manuscript (LDev) together with its position within the manuscript from to back, top to bottom, left to right of the manuscript as a whole. For poems that have a standard index designation, that designation (or designations, in the case of multiple designations in various indexes) forms the second part of the unique identifier. The exception to that general rule is made for the poems copied from Thynne's Chaucer, which would otherwise have an unwieldy designator, therefore a shortened title is used instead, comprised of the LDev locator and an abbreviated title. For example, selections from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde are designated as id="LDev00-Troilus." Following is a list of the original long form and the abbreviated versions:

LDev047-TP1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev047

TroilusLDev047.1-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev047.1

TroilusLDev047.2-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev047.2

TroilusLDev092-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev092

TroilusLDev180-TM339-TP333.5-BR666-BR1609.5-BR4217.6-BR1255 is LDev180

CupidLDev181-TM339-TP333.5-BR666-BR1609.5-BR4217.6-BR1255 is LDev181-CupidLDev182-TM1389-BR3084-BR1409.3-TP1549 is LDev182

RemedyLDev183-TM517-BR1086-TP529 is LDev183-La_BelleLDev184-TM517-BR1086-TP529 is LDev184

La_BelleLDev185-TM339-TP333.5-BR666-BR1609.5-BR4217.6-BR1255 is LDev185-CupidLDev186-TM1684-BR3670-TP1940.5 is LDev186

AnnelidaLDev187-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev187

TroilusLDev187.5-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev187.5

TroilusLDev188-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev188

TroilusLDev189 TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev189

TroilusLDev190-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev190

TroilusLDev191.1-TM1510-BR3327-BR848.5-BR1418.5-BR2577.5-BR1422.1-BR1926.5-TP1702.5 is LDev191-1-Troilus

For further description of the markup please refer to The Devonshire Manuscript in TEIheader