The Manuscript Heading

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It is common practice to prefix a full manuscript description with a brief prose characterization, title, or description, summarizing the whole of the manuscript, which may be used as a kind of `supplied title' or heading. A special purpose <msHeading> element is provided for this purpose.

The <msHeading> element may simply hold a short summary title, `heading', or `tombstone' specifying a supplied title or heading applicable to the whole of a manuscript, or this may be complemented with other elements.

The <msHeading> element and its constituents provide for the inclusion of the following information in a structured form:

`<msHeading>`	contains a brief structured description of a manuscript.
`<author>`	identifies the primary author of the work or works contained in a manuscript.
`<title>`	supplies a title for the work or works contained in a manuscript,or a brief description of a manuscript (standard TEI element)
`<respStmt>`	supplies a name and description for someone other than an author credited with intellectual responsibility for some aspect of the work or works within a manuscript (e.g. an illustrator) (standard TEI element).
`<origPlace>`	contains any form of place name, used to identify the place of origin for a manuscript or manuscript part.
`<origDate>`	contains any form of date, used to identify the date of origin for a manuscript or manuscript part.
`<textLang>`	describes the languages and writing systems used by a manuscript (as opposed to its description, which is described in the langUsage element)
`<note>`	contains any additional descriptive information about a manuscript (standard TEI element)

The constituents of a <msHeading> element may be repeated as often as desired, in any order, and with embedded character data between them, for example to supply any descriptive or interpretive information about a manuscript which cannot be accomodated using more specific elements because it covers more than one topic, or is not otherwise catered for.

Here is a simple example:

<msHeading>
<author>Domenico Cavalca</author>
<title>Vite dei santi padri</title>
<origPlace>Naples</origPlace>
<origDate>1474</origDate>
</msHeading>

Here is a more complex example, showing how the <note> and <respStmt> can be used to provide more detailed information about the intellectual content of a manuscript:

<msHeading>
<author attested="no">Galterus de Castellione</author>
<title lang="LAT">Alexandreis</title>
<title lang="ENG">Alexander's saga</title>
<respStmt><resp>translated into Old Icelandic by</resp>
<name key="BRAJO1">Brandr J&amp;oacute;nsson</name></respStmt>
<origPlace>Iceland</origPlace>
<origDate>s. XII ex</origDate>
<textLang>Old Norse/Icelandic</textLang>
<note>This is the principal manuscript of the saga and the basis
for all printed editions.</note>
</msHeading>

2.4.1 Languages and scripts

The <textLang> element should be used to provide information about the languages used within a manuscript. It may take the form of a simple note, as in the following example:

<textLang>Old Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic script.</textLang>

Where, for validation and indexing purposes, it is thought convenient to add keywords identifying the particular languages used, the langKey attribute may be used, as in the following example:

<textLang langKey="OBG">Old Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic script.</textLang>

For this example to be valid, the identifier OBG must also be predefined as the value of the ident attribute on a <language> element in the TEI header associated with this description.

<langUsage>
<language id="OBG">Old Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic script.</language>
<!-- other languages used or referenced in the manuscript description -->
</langUsage>

A manuscript will often contain material in more than one language. The langKey attribute should be used only for the chief language. Other languages used may be specified using the otherlangs attribute as in the following example:

<textLang langKey="OBG" otherlangs="RUS HEL">
Mostly Old Bulgarian, with some Russian and Greek material</textLang>

Since Old Bulgarian may be written in either Cyrillic or Glagolitic scripts, and even occasionally in both within the same manuscript, it might be preferable to define identifiers which make the distinction explicit. In such a case, the following <textLang> element might be preferred:

<textLang otherLangs="OBG-CYR OBG-GLA">Old Bulgarian, written in 
Cyrillic and Glagolitic scripts.</textLang>

and the following declarations might then be supplied in the <langUsage> element of the associated TEI Header:

<langUsage>
<language id="OBG-CYR">Old Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic script.</language>
<language id="OBG-GLA">Old Bulgarian, written in Glagolitic script.</language>
<!-- other languages used or referenced in the manuscript description -->
</langUsage>

Note that the <language> element defines a particular combination of human language and writing system. Only one <language> element may be supplied for each such combination. Standard TEI practice also allows this element to be referenced by any element using the global lang attribute in order to specify the language applicable to the content of that element. For example, assuming that <language> elements have been defined with the identifiers FRA (for French), LAT (for Latin), and DEU (for German), a manuscript description written in French which specifies that a particular manuscript contains German material, might have a <textLang> element like the following:

<textLang lang="fra" langKey="DEU">allemand/latin
</textLang>

2.4.2 Formal definitions

The <msHeading> element is formally defined as follows:

Up: 2 The Manuscript Description Element Previous: 2.3 The Manuscript Identifier Next: 2.5 Intellectual Content

(revised 21 Jun 01) Edited by Lou Burnard for the MASTER Work Group.
Copyright TEI Consortium 2001

Master Project

The MASTER Document Type Definition: reference manual

2.4 The Manuscript Heading

2.4.1 Languages and scripts

2.4.2 Formal definitions