Category: Work on the project

Scholars are divided as to whether or not those who transcribe medieval texts should expand abbreviation marks. As soon as a transcriber expands an abbreviation, he or she is making an assumption about what the scribe is using the abbreviation mark to represent. For this reason, some historical linguists are of the opinion that expanding … Continue reading “Abbreviation marks – to expand or not to expand”

While working on the Estoria project and producing its digital outputs, I hope a side effect is that we can add to the general infrastructure of the ‘textual community’, and in particular the Birmingham and Saskatchewan implementations of that. I wrote a rather longer post here about how the technology of different projects could work … Continue reading “Building the textual community”

One question we have not yet satisfactorily solved is the question of how the chronicle should be presented to the public. The clearest solution to these issues are dealt with the criteria outlined by the CHARTA project. We intend to produce an edition which will have collectable palaeographic (or perhaps “graphic” since we do not … Continue reading “To punctuate or not to punctuate…”

When transcribing a section of E2, Christian came across an abbreviation not previously seen: The character represents the word “sueldos”. I wondered if it was the standard abbreviation for “solidi” as on a number of occasions Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada’s “solidi” become “sueldos” in the Estoria, and it seemed reasonable to me that the scribe … Continue reading “Sueldos, of various kinds.”

 While putting <ab> tags into E2, I came across an interesting problem for future reference. The section of the Estoria in question deals with the history of the Cid and specifically with the conquest of Valencia. As noted by various scholars, the provenance of this section is rather different to others, since Arabic sources (“Abenalfarax … Continue reading “Arabic in Roman characters”

Polly has recently come across the problem of how to expand the abbreviation “mug” (with a macron over the g) in manuscript E2. In principle, I take the view that since (i) E is going to provide us with our base text, and (ii) it is (in parts) the earliest attestation for the Estoria, we … Continue reading “Muger/Mugier?”

Esta semana al transcribir mis folios tuve algunas dudas… ¡A ver si todos juntos podemos contestar las 20 preguntas que siguen! Gracias de antemano por vuestra ayuda. 1) Fol. 30r l.26 Añadieron una “q” antes de “por”. ¿Cómo lo representamos en la transcripción? 2) Fol 30r l 47 (y otras) Aparece “sus” abreviado antes de … Continue reading “Dudas…”

The base text for the edition is made up of a transcription of the two best-known manuscripts (E1 and E2, from the Escorial, collectively known as E). Although these provide the full text of the Estoria they are a composite text comprised of sections drawn from three different (but still royal) recensions of the Estoria … Continue reading “xml for chronicles”