Help
§1 Site Navigation
To make optimal use of screen real estate, navigation and information panels are hidden by default. To access the navigation menu using a mouse interface, hover your mouse cursor near the left edge of the browser window. With a touch interface, tap in the lower 20% of the left-hand edge. Similar actions in the left-hand and right-hand halves of the top margin bring up information panels.
§2 Manuscript Items
The website identifies manuscript items (to use a less loaded term than “texts,” “redactions,” “versions,” or “witnesses”) using a numerical (sometimes alphanumerical) reference consisting of Ker’s manuscript index (i.e. ordered alphabetically by location, repository, collection, and numerically by manuscript number and item) and article number within the manuscript, separated by a dot. (N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957.) Thus 394.26 is the manuscript numbered 394 by Ker (i.e. the Vercelli Book), 26th article by Ker’s count. Please note that Ker’s count includes non-homiletic items: thus 394.26 is Vercelli homily XXI, not XXVI. Manuscripts and fragments not in Ker’s Catalogue are given existing index numbers with a new suffix “x,” “y,” or “z” and a sequential article number, or alphabetical designation in case of a shorter fragment, mimicking Ker’s alpha-numerical sorting principle: thus Westminster Muniment 67209 has the reference 284x.a.
Because we cannot expect our users to learn Ker’s manuscript index by heart, the navigation panel and item headings furthermore include short call numbers such as “CCCC 201” or “Hatton 114.” The full call number can always be found in the topright information panel once an item has been selected.
§3 Item Navigation and Comparison
Once one or more items have been selected, activating item view, the following features aid in navigation and comparison:
- Highlighting on mouseover (not available on touch interfaces) indicates the presence of at least one further sentence in the current selection of texts genetically related to the one hovered.
- Clicking or tapping a sentence number lines up the first matching sentence of each text currently open at the top of the window.
- Clicking any sentence whose sentence number is printed in burgundy red switches to sentence view, listing all cognate passages in the corpus, including those not currently selected. A sentence in item view whose sentence number is printed in grey has no known cognates in the corpus and cannot be clicked to open sentence view. Sentences in sentence view are ordered chronologically by manuscript date and beyond that by Ker manuscript index number (i.e. alphabetically by location, library, and collection, and numerically by manuscript number). Clicking on a sentence in sentence view brings up the full item containing the selected sentence; your browser’s return button will return you to your items as previously selected.
- Quotations are printed in purple. In item view and sentence view, quotations with identified sources are followed by a grey, bracketed source reference that can be clicked or tapped to bring up source view, listing all sentences in the corpus representing the source passage in question. Clicking on a sentence in source view brings up the full item containing the selected sentence; your browser’s return button will return you to your items as previously selected.
§4 Editorial Conventions
- Except in normalized display (forthcoming), scribal deletions are indicated |‑thus‑|, regardless of method of deletion, as long as they remain legible; illegible deletions render as |‑[…]‑|.
- Except in normalized display (forthcoming), scribal additions are indicated
- \thus when supralineal/
- /thus when sublineal\
- |thus when inline|
- ←thus when in the left margin←, etc.
- Scribal glosses are like other additions but add parentheses, ←(thus)←.
§5 State of Development
In its public alpha stage, this website offers only such texts and functionality as are deemed ready for public trial. Even so, the facility is under constant development, and imperfections are inevitable. We ask for your patience with any of the more obvious shortcomings and temporary outages, though you may certainly address observations and suggestions to Paul at planges@uni-goettingen.de.
