The community of the realm in Scotland, 1249–1424
History, law and charters in a recreated kingdom

Below are the concepts which will lie behind the display and functionality of our dynamic editions. They are, however, work in progress so do send any feedback to cotr2020@gmail.com.

These were updated on 29 June 2020 and represent the work of the project team on and before this date.

What does a dynamic edition do?

A dynamic edition allows a modern editor to represent textual movement and scribal agency within a work. It allows a modern user to access the multiple instantiations of the work across its manuscript-texts and better and more accurately identify what medieval audiences might have read and/or heard of a particular work.

Concepts:

Codex:

The artefact today (typically a bound volume), with a shelfmark. Codices can contain multiple manuscripts.

Work

Text with a sufficiently clear identity to make it potentially the subject of a modern edition. It is often referred to by name and/or title /or presumed authorship (e.g. Glanvill; Regiam maiestatem). A work can exist in multiple manuscript-texts and may be constituted by many versions. The work can be represented in artificial work or version- texts or instantiated in a manuscript-text.

Manuscript:

A codicological unit that contains the copy of a work. (This could be the entire volume, or part of a volume, or even stretching across more than one codex.) A manuscript is, like a codex, a physical entity.

Manuscript-text:

The text (of a work) as contained in a single manuscript. There is always an element of editorial intervention in the removal of manuscript-text into another format, whether print or digital.

Abstracted text

A text that involves an element of editorial intervention or interpretation, however small.

Version-text

The abstracted text of a manuscript-group. It is generated from the abstracted texts of each manuscript-text in the group.

Manuscript-group / Version

A group of manuscripts whose singular manuscript-text of a work have a distinctively common form, structure, content or shared context so as to constitute a Version. The commonality that defines a manuscript-group could be significant similarity of content or a similar context of occurrence. A manuscript-group is not primarily defined by shared readings, although the extent of shared readings contribute to an editor’s judgement about the extent of commonality between manuscript-texts. It is therefore not to be confused with recension. A manuscript-group refers to the physical manifestations (in manuscript) of the version.

Settled text

All words which, if read out, would probably have sounded the same in all manuscript-texts.

Unsettled text

All words or groups of words which are not present in all manuscript-texts so that the word(s) would definitely have sounded differently when read out, and all words or groups of words given in at least one manuscript-text but not all. A region of unsettled text begins at the point where the manuscript-text in at least two manuscripts diverges, and ends when the text in all manuscript-texts in a version converge.

Auxiliary,

A mark up applied to sections of manuscript-text which are integral to the manuscript but not integral to the work being edited (examples might be: 'interlinear glosses; clearly demarcated commentary; text in the margins).

Antecedent

A known predecessor for a particular piece of text, previously (and continuing to be) circulating as part of a different work. A source is not to be confused with an exemplar, Glanvill is a source of Regiam Maiestatem but we don't know the compiler's exemplar.

Exemplar

The known physical manuscript used by a scribe which provides the textual material for his own work.