Transcribing incipits and explicits in TEI-XML
Dr Takako Kato
De Montfort University
The story of the decay and decline of Old English and
the eventual re-emergence of Middle English, set to
conquer the world, is one of our great national myths.
An essential component of this myth was the view that
Old English literary activity in the twelfth century was
merely a fossilised and archaic throwback, a linguistic
chicken continuing to twitch after its head had been cut
off in 1066.
Andrew Prescott
‘Talking Together: Reflecting on The Production
and Use of English Manuscripts 1060-1220’
Aim: Deliver fundamental challenges to the national myth.
Objectives:
Identified, analysed & evaluated all mss containing
English texts between 1060 & 1220.
Produced an analytical electronic corpus of material.
5-year, AHRC-funded
Universities of Leicester and Leeds
May 2005- Nov 2010
PI: Elaine Treharne
Directors: Mary Swan, Jo Story, Orietta Da Rold
I have been involved since Jan 2008 (the second RA)
Success of the EM Project
1. Research: reappraised the importance of post-Conquest English
 Identified 205 manuscripts
•
Homilies, annotations, laws, sermons, saints’ lives, land charters,
medical recipes, prayers, etc.
•
Geographically: Exeter, Worcester, London, Canterbury, Durham,
Bath, etc.
•
English was used together with Latin and French.
 Output:
•
The website (http://www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/)
•
23 articles
•
23 academic papers at international conferences
•
Special Issue on Producing and Using English Manuscripts in the PostConquest Period, New Medieval Literature, 13 (2012)
2. Scholarly network; nurturing the next generation
The challenges the EM Project presented
1. New discoveries: increase of workload (128 => 205 mss)
2. Image reproduction
3. Longevity and sustainability of digital resources
4. AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) discontinued
5. AHRC requires a technical APPENDIX
The challenges the EM Project presented
the technical APPENDIX
 PIs outsource the technical appendix.
 Technical reviewers of the AHRC comment on the technical
feasibility of the proposal.
 How to define DH as a discipline?
1. New recommendations:
 The Technical Plan (not the Appendix) must be
integrated with the research plan
 Technical reviews of the AHRC should consider the
technical plan’s relationship to the proposal.
A Review of the AHRC Technical Appendix and Recommendations for a Technical Plan
(http://digital.humanities.ox.ac.uk/Support/technicalappendix_final3.pdf, Oct 10).
2. Centres of DH;
3. King’s: from Centre to Department
EM Project’s research plan:
The challenges the EM Project presented
the technical APPENDIX
Year 1: Website goes live. It will be updated regularly
throughout the duration of the project.
Year 5: RA finishes the Catalogue ... , it will be launched on
website.
building the website
Relational Database
Machine Readable Catalogue
vs
Extensive Mark-up Language
Text Encoding Initiative
The challenges the EM Project presented
building the website
Digital Humanities is about building things. I’m willing to
entertain highly expansive definitions of what it means to build
something. … – but if you aren’t building, you are not engaged in
the “methodologization” of the humanities …
Stephen Ramsay, ‘Who’s In and Who’s Out’
(http://lenz.unl.edu/papers/2011/01/08/whos-in-and-whos-out.html)
 Theoretical work: methodology and terminology, both in DH
and MS studies
 Trial database => limitations for a document-centric project
 Working with the TEI => shaping of the guidelines for the ms
description
 Networks with DH projects
 Palaeography: terminologies for description the scripts
The challenges the EM Project presented
building the website
 Flexible approach
• Detailed case studies
• Standard descriptions
• Summary descriptions
 XML is extendable
• Standard descriptions
• Summary descriptions
transcribing
the incipits & explicits
 Indices
Chronology|Texts|Origin|Scribes|French|Places|Names
 Implementation of sophisticated search facilities
 Collaboration, communication, and networking
Using vs Building
EM Project is cited in:
Blanton, Virginia, and Helene Scheck eds, Intertexts: Studies in
Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Paul E. Szarmach (Arizona
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2008)
Conti, Aidan, ‘Revising Wulfstan's Antichrist in the Twelfth
Century: A Study in Medieval Textual Re-appropriation’,
Literature Compass, 4.3 (2007), 638–63
Faulkner, Mark, ‘Rewriting English Literary History 1042–1215’,
Literature Compass, 9.4 (2012), 275–91
Marsden, Richard, ed., The Old English Heptateuch: and Ælfric's
Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novo, EETS (Oxford University
Press, 2008)
Wogan-Brown, Jocelyn, ed., Language and Culture in Medieval
Britain: THE FRENCH OF ENGLAND c.1100–c.1500 (York
Medieval Press, 2009)
 The new myth:
Even after the Norman Conquest, English was still
in continuous use. As many as 205 manuscripts
with English survived from the period between
1060 and 1220.