medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Hi, Winston,
>>Winston E. Black wrote:
Frans and Jussi:
Thanks for the quick responses. Indeed, the text is associated with the
Dominicans, and in the 1230, so we're on the cutting edge of medieval
indexing "technology". The letters do refer to sections of the verses in
question. The "A" was at the very beginning, the "G" at the very end, and
the "S" turned out to be an "F", referring to the penultimate lump of verses.<<
Clever, but, no, not the cutting edge of Medieval indexing technology.
Alpha indexing is not Medieval in origins. It's a memory indexing
technique. Carruthers (among others) in her /I/The Book of Memory/i/, has
quite a bit on the technique.
Indexing tags started out with spacing :in cuneiform -- back in the third
millennium BCE. Empty line to the end meant end of chapter. Empty space
between sentences indicated the end of a section. Indexing by spacing shows
up in the Bible -- both Greek and Hebrew ca. 3rd BCE. Spacing and
paragraph markers already appear in Greek by the 4th BCE.
Spacing by chapter and section: that's the origin of chapter and verse.
Alpha paragraph indexing appears in the Codex Siniaticus, 4th CE. Alpha
indexing is all over the place in Psalters --Latin and OE.
So, clever use, but not cutting edge.Just another example of the alpha
memory indexing technique. -- and just another item to watch out for when
working with the MSS. I'd also keep an eye on the spacing; that remained in
use right along side the alpha markers.
Come to think of it, alpha markers and blank space to the end of the line
as a paragraph marker are still in use. :-)
Back to lurjing,
Rochelle
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