1) i hope so! you guys are making me feel so much better :)
2) Endnotes are the plan at the moment. It remains to be seen what happens when I insert the tables into the rest of chapter one, though.
3a) By 'easily available' I was reffering to Ker's Catalogue, and Wormald (The Making Of English Law, p. 200-201). Loyn, being a facsimile, is slightly more difficult to get hold of. Wormald's description is FABULOUS in several respects: a) he breaks the MS down into five sections, and gives you a table. It's A4 size, though, so it's no use for descriptions of individual texts. b) Those five sections correspond to the sections he talks about in The Holiness of Society, but in English Law he doesn't fluff around with the Exerptiones, and in the text preceding the table he fleshes out his ideas about the development of the MS in Wulfstanian times. Also,The Making of English Law is a very, very sexy book in all respects. I'm finding that, as well as the MS description, his discussions of individual kings and their lawmaking projects is providing the "notes" column for large sections of my table. Also, he has a snarky sense of humour and is just fabulous.
3b) Yes, yes it is well and truly time. As I was saying to Jenn, I get the feeling a lot more could be done with online databases. What's so odd about Ker? All I find is that his Catalogue condenses too much into too short a space, so that unless you actually KNOW what's in the MS, you get a bit boggled and lost. I'm preparing my description (a bigger section than just the table) according to the Sacred Principles of Ker, handed down from Ker to a student of his whose name I forget (jenny someone?), who passed them on to Awesome, who described a MS in the back of her thesis, and instructed me to copy the layout therefrom. In a much lengthier description than the Catalogue entry, the Ker Approved Layout is perfectly logical and makes perfect sense. Furthermore, I would like more manuscript descriptions to be laid out in such a way that you can quickly pick out like texts. To figure out what's homilies and what's laws and so on, I've either had to go to Loyn's overblown description, or to get hold of the editions and pick them out from there (although I'm told this is fraught with danger in the matter of Napier, and even Jost seems to contain some texts which are more like semi-Institutes). I'm thinking either colour-coded entries in books, or tables, or (best option), online databases. The table works well for one MS, aside from being a bastard to make, but if i wanted a calatlogue of all Wulstan MSS, a single table would be out of the question, and that would leave you picking through each text and figuring out how the table was laid and fishing your information from them one by one. hmmm... a catalogue of all Wulfstan MSS... *puts that on the putative Life To Do List*
4. Your prize for being the first person brave enough to comment on The Naked Philologist is a copy of my carefully constructed table. And you can tell me whether or not I"m right about it being a highly user-friendly format.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-04-05 11:23 pm (UTC)you guys are making me feel so much better :)
2) Endnotes are the plan at the moment. It remains to be seen what happens when I insert the tables into the rest of chapter one, though.
3a) By 'easily available' I was reffering to Ker's Catalogue, and Wormald (The Making Of English Law, p. 200-201). Loyn, being a facsimile, is slightly more difficult to get hold of.
Wormald's description is FABULOUS in several respects: a) he breaks the MS down into five sections, and gives you a table. It's A4 size, though, so it's no use for descriptions of individual texts.
b) Those five sections correspond to the sections he talks about in The Holiness of Society, but in English Law he doesn't fluff around with the Exerptiones, and in the text preceding the table he fleshes out his ideas about the development of the MS in Wulfstanian times.
Also,The Making of English Law is a very, very sexy book in all respects. I'm finding that, as well as the MS description, his discussions of individual kings and their lawmaking projects is providing the "notes" column for large sections of my table. Also, he has a snarky sense of humour and is just fabulous.
3b) Yes, yes it is well and truly time. As I was saying to Jenn, I get the feeling a lot more could be done with online databases.
What's so odd about Ker? All I find is that his Catalogue condenses too much into too short a space, so that unless you actually KNOW what's in the MS, you get a bit boggled and lost.
I'm preparing my description (a bigger section than just the table) according to the Sacred Principles of Ker, handed down from Ker to a student of his whose name I forget (jenny someone?), who passed them on to Awesome, who described a MS in the back of her thesis, and instructed me to copy the layout therefrom. In a much lengthier description than the Catalogue entry, the Ker Approved Layout is perfectly logical and makes perfect sense.
Furthermore, I would like more manuscript descriptions to be laid out in such a way that you can quickly pick out like texts. To figure out what's homilies and what's laws and so on, I've either had to go to Loyn's overblown description, or to get hold of the editions and pick them out from there (although I'm told this is fraught with danger in the matter of Napier, and even Jost seems to contain some texts which are more like semi-Institutes). I'm thinking either colour-coded entries in books, or tables, or (best option), online databases. The table works well for one MS, aside from being a bastard to make, but if i wanted a calatlogue of all Wulstan MSS, a single table would be out of the question, and that would leave you picking through each text and figuring out how the table was laid and fishing your information from them one by one.
hmmm... a catalogue of all Wulfstan MSS... *puts that on the putative Life To Do List*
4. Your prize for being the first person brave enough to comment on The Naked Philologist is a copy of my carefully constructed table. And you can tell me whether or not I"m right about it being a highly user-friendly format.