The editorial principles applied to Regiam

Alice Taylor and John Reuben Davies introduce how the editorial principles have been applied to Regiam maiestatem, and how letter forms and punctuation have been treated/standardised.

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Applying the editorial principles

It will be remembered that a dynamic edition divides the work being edited into X number of text blocks which are themselves divided into Y number of sentences.

The X is determined by the divisions in the earliest known form of the work.

The Y is determined by the editor, according to the sense of the block as a whole.

It is necessary to divide into blocks and sentences to compare manuscript-texts of the same work which divide the text differently.

Thus, as the earliest known form of Regiam is manuscript F, F's chapter divisions constitute the text block.

In manuscript-textF, therefore, a new chapter heading will always denote the beginning of a new text block. This will not be the case in any other manuscript instantiation of Regiam.

There are 190 chapters in Regiam, and a prologue. This makes 191 text blocks.

In order to ensure that we can add to our text samples even beyond the life of the project (31 August 2020), we have numbered our samples according to their place in Regiam itself.

'Chapter 2' in F becomes Block 3
'Chapter 3' in F becomes Block 4
'Chapter 93' in F becomes Block 94
'Chapter 143' in F becomes Block 144

All manuscript-text, version-text and work-text have their text blocks beginning at the same point, even if they contain different numbers of chapters.

All text blocks, in every type of -text, will have the same number of sentences within it.

In Regiam, There are always:

12 sentences in Block 1
7 sentences in Block 2
10 sentences in Block 3
2 sentences in Block 4
10 sentences in Block 5
3 sentences in Block 9
10 sentences in Block 10
11 sentences in Block 11 [this is a coincidence, not a typo]
15 sentences in Block 94
8 sentences in Block 144

Standardisation of letter forms and the treatment of punctuation in Regiam

It will be remembered that we treat all transcription of manuscript-text as abstracted-text. (This is why the conceptually correct way of referring to manuscript-text in dynamic editions is abstracted-manuscript-text, but this is a bit of a mouthful.)

This is because every rendering of manuscript style and scribal practice is at a basic level an abstraction of what is on the manuscript folio, even if one is using, for example, a type which presents accurately the signs of contraction (as used to be the case in 'Record type').

The degree of abstraction in manuscript-text, therefore, is an editorial decision, which must be explained by the editor.

Locating auxiliary text in the text viewer

To be supplied by 31 August 2020. Check back later!

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