Editorial Conventions for the English Translation
The following is a quick guide to editorial conventions used for the English translation, by Frank Thorn.
Please note that the conventions described here are for the text presented in the default form. However, this website is dynamic and allows you to change in some detail how the text is displayed. For this reason what you see may not match what is described here. In these cases, instructions are provided below explaining how to show or hide the various features where this is possible. For further details see The In-Pane Menu Bar in the Getting Started FAQ (under User Guidance in the top menu-bar).
Abbreviations
DB: Domesday Book, as a whole; the Domesday process and Survey, the Domesday corpus of texts specified below.
EDB: Exon, or Exeter Domesday Book
GDB: Great Domesday Book
LDB: Little Domesday Book
TO: The Exon Terrae Occupatae
REFERENCES
Folio References
Folio numbers indicate recto (r) or verso (v) folios of the MS as used in the 1816 edition of Sir Henry Ellis.
References to individual entries
References such as 156a1, 334b3 indicate the folio, the recto (a) or the verso (b) numbered from the top to the bottom in a straight numerical sequence.
Cross References
Individual estates are linked to their corresponding entry in GDB, also to any occurrence elsewhere in EDB
BRACKETS
Note that brackets and the text they contain may or may not be visible, depending on your settings for the website. In order to hide or show the brackets in the text view, move your mouse over the menu-bar immediately above the text, then over the icon shaped like an eye, and you will see a list of options that you can change (show/hide folio numbers, show/hide entry numbers, etc.).
Curved Brackets (...) enclose a marginal addition. Some begin in spaces at the ends of short lines in the text.
Curly Brackets {...} enclose an interlineation consisting of one or more whole words or figures. Some run into the margin.
Angle Brackets ⟨...⟩ enclose the translation of whole words that have been omitted by the scribes but are necessary for the understanding of the text.
Square Brackets [...] enclose an editorial addition, for example to clarify the translation or to identify places or individuals, or to provide folio and entry numbers.
MARGINALIA
Text added in the margin contemporaneously by the scribes of the original text is marked by a superscript word “margin” in blue against a lighter blue background. Signs (signes de renvoi) used by the scribes to show its relation to the text are not reproduced since each marginalium is here inserted in its proper place embedded in the body of the text. Some marginalia begin in spaces within the part of the folio ruled to receive text.
Note that marginalia may not be visible if you have changed the default settings for the website. In this case, in order to see them again, move your mouse over the menu-bar immediately above the text, then over the icon shaped like an eye, then deselect 'hide marginalia'.
GAPS
.... indicate that a sentence breaks off, or normal information such as the figure for a particular resource is missing or that the text cannot be read.
ERASURES
---- denote the erasures of whole entries, with or without a 'gallows-sign'. Such whole entries are allotted a reference number.
DELETIONS
A strike through (bishop) indicates a deletion marked by the scribe.
Underlining indicates something which, in the editor's judgement, the scribe should have marked for deletion.
NAMES
Personal Names
Given or Forenames
Anglo-Saxon personal names are given in standardised form following the conventions used for the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE http://domesday.pase.ac.uk/) and the incomplete PASE 2 ('Profile of a Doomed Elite').
Bynames
Most names fall into the categories of (a) physical or moral defects or characteristics, (b) occupational, (c) toponymical. Those from physical or moral defects are translated from the Latin or Old French wherever the meaning is clear. Occupational names are treated as such ('the cook', 'the huntsman'). Except in rare instances, none of these categories are treated as surnames.
Toponyms.
These are treated as the names of the places from which the holders came; see place names (next). They are not treated as surnames.
PLACE-NAMES
Identifiable names are given in their modern form as shown on OS maps (for England) or IGN maps (for France).
Those parts of the name given in capitals in the translation correspond to the only part of the name that is found in the Latin text. The bracketed additions in lower case are post-Domesday extensions of the name.
Names which are attested after 1086 but are either lost or no longer settlement sites are placed in single inverted commas ('DODISHAM'). Names, for which the latest (and often the only) evidence is in DB, are given in italics: as WEDRERIGA.