medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Paul — I'd be interested to hear, too, if others on the list know about
literature on this. Is there anything on this problem in the proceedings
volumes of the Toronto Annual Conferences on Editorial Problems? I am not aware
of a discussion on this in literature anywhere.
I am only too aware that the debate for and against regularization rages on.
It was the topic of intense debate between my co-editor and myself in the
Corpus Christianorum edition I am currently working on (CCCM 53G, forthcoming).
The main argument here was, as you say, about electronic searchability. I'd
say it completely depends on the type of text, the state of the textual
tradition of that particular text, and the user audience of the critical
edition. I personally was of the opinion that the search algorithms have to
follow the editorial practice, but my co-editor (Mark Zier) was a bit less
purist. The fact that our base text was already a composite of two manuscripts
made us decide on a compromise: that it didn't really hurt to regularize to
some extent and weed out some of the more individual spellings. And I guess
here's where you find the debate: in the rationes edendi of well-documented
critical editions.
Perhaps my position is strengthened by the fact that I know very little about
computers. I'd say: if you're not aware that Eva can be Hava, you're bound to
miss something. Machines are only as "smart" as their users. i recently did a
search on "arca foederis", and thought I had covered for "archa", "federis",
and so on, when I suddenly realized that "arca testamenti" yielded a much
better result. That's hard to do with an algorithm.
That said, I think I'll Hava Cuppa Cophi.
Frans van Liere
Department of History, Calvin College
1845 Knollcrest Circle SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/history/faculty/vanlieref/
>>> Paul Chandler <[log in to unmask]> 10/31/2007 1:50 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Frans, I agree 100% with the points you make so graciously. Thanks for the
links to glossae.net, which I had not seen before, and for the information
about glossaordinaria.net.
I want to raise a related issue and would be interested to hear what list
members think. The electronic texts which we now have at our disposal (or at
least some of us do, not always including me unfortunately) and their
powerful search capacities raise again the issue, already noted by John
Briggs, of the classicisation or regularisation of medieval orthography. The
variant forms of Eve's name recorded just in the simplified apparatus for
Gen 4:1 which I have before me -- Havam (in the text); hauam, haeuam, aeuam,
heuam, heua, and euam (in the apparatus) -- dramatise the issue, and I'm
sure far more dramatic examples could be readily found. Even pretty smart
fuzzy search algorithms are likely to be stumped, or to return so many hits
on *eua* as to defeat the purpose, while still missing aua and who knows
what other forms lurking here and there.
I think we've all heard the arguments for preserving medieval practice where
feasible. But electronic searching has to some extent changed the game. What
are the experts saying about this nowadays? Is some form of regularisation
really the more practical option for text editions now? Is there a
literature on this somewhere? -- Paul Chandler
On 31/10/2007, Frans van Liere <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Paul:
> I did not mean to sound negative about VulSearch. I absolutely agree:
> better
> to have this resource than none at all. In this respect, I disagree with
> Paul
> Tombeur on the question of whether the PLD is actually setting scholarship
> back
> or advancing it: I find it a wonderful tool. Tombeur argued that the use
> of the
> PLD would drive people away from the use of modern, critical editions, and
> use
> nineteenth-century reprints of seventeenth-century editions as if they
> were the
> latest that scholarship had produced. And, to be honest, he has a point
> here.
> But that is a matter of the level of education of the users of PLD, not
> PLD
> itself.
>
> My concern, and you rightly point that out, was just that people should
> check
> the PL text and Vulsearch text of the Glossa ordinaria with at least the
> Rusch
> edition, or better, the manuscripts, depending on the level of scholarly
> use
> (even if that means taking the bus). There are critical editions of the
> Glossa
> ordinaria currently only for Song of Songs, as you point out, and
> Lamentations
> 1 (by Alexander Andrée). Mark Zier is working on an electronic edition of
> the
> Rusch Glossa ordinaria, on-line (he has reserved the domain
> www.glossaordinaria.net for this, but it will be a while before this is up
>
> and running!), and I am told that an electronic edition of Rusch's Glossa
> ordinaria on Matthew is forthcoming by Marjorie Burghart (www.glossae.net).
> Of
> course the use of Rusch brings certain risks as well. Many authors treat
> it as
> if it were the twelfth-century glossed Bible itself, which is certainly
> not the
> case. In fact, one might argue that before the advent of printing, "the"
> Glossa
> ordinaria did not really exist; there were just glossed Bibles.
>
> As with any tool, scholarly or not, you need to know what it does and how
> to
> handle it, before you use it. But I am not saying here anything that is
> not
> common sense to anyone on this list, I realize.
>
>
>
>
>
> Frans van Liere
> Department of History, Calvin College
> 1845 Knollcrest Circle SE
> Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> http://www.calvin.edu/academic/history/faculty/vanlieref/
>
>
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