Exon Domesdayhttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/2018-02-27T16:44:22+00:00The Conqueror's Commissioners: Unlocking the Domesday survey of SW EnglandLangford History Group: Domesday Book and the locality2018-02-27T16:41:02+00:002018-02-27T16:44:22+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/langford-history-group-domesday-book-and-the-locality/<p align="center"><b>Langford History Group</b></p>
<p align="center"><b>On March 8<sup>th</sup> 2018 at 19.30</b></p>
<p align="center"><b>Dr Frank THORN of the Exon Domesday Project</b><b> </b></p>
<p align="center"><b>will be giving a lecture entitled</b></p>
<p align="center"><b>DOMESDAY BOOK AND THE LOCALITY</b>.</p>
<p>This lecture will look at the Domesday Survey of 1086 in general and at the Domesday estates in the Yeo valley in particular. Greater understanding of the 'Domesday Process' has been brought by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's funded study, now nearing completion, of Exon or Exeter Domesday Book, the immediate predecessor of Domesday Book for the five south-western counties. The estates around the river Yeo (formerly the Wring), listed in Domesday Book but mostly originating much earlier, form a fascinating group which shared in upland, riverine and maritime resources and which were probably carved out successively from the ancient royal estate of Bedminster-Hartcliffe. In this lecture the general gives context to the particular and the local detail illuminates the operation of the Survey.</p>
<p>Details are on the website <<a href="http://langfordhistory.com/lhg/events/">http://langfordhistory.com/lhg/events/</a>>. Visitors are welcome. There is a small charge of £2 per visitor or £2.50 including coffee.</p>
<p>The lecture will take place in the Churchill Building of the Bristol Veterinary School at Langford. The entrance is in Stock Lane. Langford is between Churchill and Wrington in North Somerset.</p>manuSciences 20172017-04-22T10:14:22+00:002017-04-22T10:17:34+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/manusciences-2017/<p>The deadline is fast approaching to register for manuSciences 2017. This is a Franco-German summer school organised jointly by the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), the Hamburg Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMS), and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University (PSL). It comprises a series of lectures and courses which 'will focus on a multi-facetted investigation of manuscripts adding new chemical and physical analyses, imaging methods and techniques from computer sciences to classical philology, paleography, codicology, linguistics and history.' Quoting/paraphrasing further from the EPHE version of the website:</p>
<p><strong>What</strong>: A week-long programme on physical sciences and digital methods in manuscript studies and philology. Active participation is expected. The lectures and courses will be in English.<br/><strong>Where</strong>: Villa Clythia, Frejus, France<br/><strong>When</strong>: 10–15 September 2017<br/><strong>Who (participants)</strong>: Up to 40 (max.) young researchers, from master and Ph.D. students to researchers and university lecturers.<br/><strong>Who (lecturers)</strong>: Roger Easton, Leif Glaser, Oliver Hahn (organiser), Keith Knox, Marcus Liwicki, Eve Menei, Ira Rabin (organiser), Hasia Rimon, Uzi Smilansky, Marc Smith, Peter Stokes, Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (organiser), Dominique Stutzmann</p>
<p>For more details, including how to register, see <a href="http://humanum.ephe.fr/fr/manusciences17">http://humanum.ephe.fr/fr/manusciences17<br/></a>or <a href="https://www.bam.de/Content/EN/Events/2017/1115-manusciences-17-summer-school.html">https://www.bam.de/Content/EN/Events/2017/1115-manusciences-17-summer-school.html</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>This article has been cross-posted on the <a href="http://www.digipal.eu/blog/manusciences-2017/">DigiPal</a> and <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk/blog/manusciences-2017/">Models of Authority</a> websites</em>.]</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://www.bam.de/_SharedDocs/EN/Downloads/Events/va-1115-poster.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3"><img src="https://www.bam.de/_SharedDocs/EN/Downloads/Events/va-1115-poster.pdf;jsessionid=9981FBFAC70D45AC468A693E3616B981?__blob=publicationFile&v=2"/></a></p>John Coffin Memorial Lecture 20172017-04-19T14:50:54+00:002017-04-19T14:53:44+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/john-coffin-memorial-lecture-2017/<p>I'm very happy to see that this year's John Coffin Memorial Lecture in Palaeography will be given by Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, on 'Crossing Palaeographical Borders: Bi-Alphabetical Hebrew Scribes and Manuscripts in Egypt, Spain and Northern France (11th to 15th Centuries)'. A summary of the talk is reproduced here from <a href="http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/event/8256">the IES website</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Medieval Jewish scribal culture reflects long-standing post-biblical traditions elaborated by Jewish communities in Palestine, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Moreover, despite major linguistic and scribal differences, Jewish medieval scribes in both East and West were well aware of the palaeographical specificities of the non-Jewish cultures among which they resided. This awareness is apparent in the manuscripts themselves: some contain texts written in different languages and alphabets, others are written in Hebrew script with features echoing the scripts of the majority cultures. Taking as examples manuscripts written in Egypt, Spain and Northern France between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, I attempt to uncover some of the mechanisms, technical, aesthetic and social, underlying such scribal cross-cultural encounters. <br/><br/>Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger is the Director of Studies, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Section des Sciences Historiques et Philogogiques, Sorbonne University, Paris and is a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. She is a highly distinguished scholar, funded by the Rothschild Foundation to research uncatalogued material, and her subject is fundamental to current work on medieval Europe. She heads a pan-European project entitled ‘Books within Books’ (<a href="http://hebrewmanuscript.com">http://hebrewmanuscript.com</a>), that seeks to locate, photograph and describe every Hebrew manuscript to be found in the bindings of books (these are mostly books written in Latin) now in libraries across Europe. She is a leading specialist in the study of Hebrew manuscripts, palaeography and diplomatic, the history of medieval linguistic thought and Christian Hebrew scholars in the Middle Ages.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>What</strong>: 2017 John Coffin Memorial Lecture in Palaeography<br/><strong>Who</strong>: Prof. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (EPHE)<br/><strong>Where</strong>: Chancellor's Hall, First Floor, Senate House, Malet Street London WC1E 7HU<br/><strong>When</strong>: 18h-20h, Wednesday 24 May 2017<br/><strong>For more details</strong> (including booking a free place at the talk): <a href="http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/event/8256">http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/event/8256</a></p>
<p></p>
<p><img src="https://sas.sym-online.com/UserFiles/y2jIiDrUowzJHlr91AZATZfx5l2tc1IhBgD71mktkflxY6iy8nqRkAMBYLkT5p2x/2017%20Palaeography%20Lecture%20Poster.pdf"/></p>
<p>[<em>This blog entry is cross-posted on the <a href="http://www.digipal.eu/blog/john-coffin-memorial-lecture-2017/">DigiPal</a> and <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk/blog/john-coffin-memorial-lecture-2017/">Models of Authority</a> websites.</em>]</p>Software behind Exon Domesday website wins inaugural MAA Digital Humanities Prize2017-01-15T15:51:57+00:002017-01-26T23:29:51+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/software-behind-exon-domesday-website-wins-inaugural-maa-digital-humanities-prize/<p>We are very happy and honoured to announce that <a href="http://www.digipal.eu">the DigiPal project</a> has won the inaugural <a href="https://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/page/DHPrize">Digital Humanities Prize</a> of the Medieval Academy of America. This project ran from 2010 to 2014 and first developed the software that now lies behind this website; the 'core' DigiPal team has since been working on the Exon Domesday and <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk">Models of Authority</a> projects and have developed the software further as part of this.</p>
<p> <a href="http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/maa-blog-inaugural-medieval-academy-digital-humanities-prize/">The full citation</a> for the prize notes that</p>
<blockquote>DigiPal’s innovative framework, collaborative origins, open access, quality design, and skillfully curated pilot collection make it an excellent model for the practice of digital humanities scholarship in the field of medieval studies.</blockquote>
<p>I personally want to thank all the people who have contributed to DigiPal as a project and to the <a href="https://github.com/kcl-ddh/digipal">free and open-source software</a> that we have continued to develop since the project finished in 2014; these thanks include the European Research Council who funded the whole project through an <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/funding-and-grants/funding-schemes/starting-grants">ERC Starting Grant</a>. The citation formally credits the 'core' DigiPal team of Peter Stokes, Stewart Brookes and Geoffroy Noël, and I certainly thank my colleagues Stewart and Geoffroy, but of course this is only a small seletion of the people who have contributed directly to the project over the last seven years. The <a href="http://www.digipal.eu">DigiPal</a>, <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk">Models of Authority</a> and Conqueror's Commissioners projects, as well as smaller projects such as ScandiPal, SephardiPal, ViGOTHIC, and Polices des Caractères et Inscriptions Monétaires, along with the various advisory boards, student interns, and others, brings the total number of contributors to well over 30 people. These people and the <a href="http://www.ahrc.ac.uk">Arts and Humanities Research Council</a>, who funded Models of Authority and the Conqueror's Commissioners, all deserve recognition.</p>
<p>Finally, to give some sense of the significance of this award, here is some text on the Academy and prize (thanks to the MAA's Executive Director, Lisa Fagin Davis, for providing this):</p>
<blockquote>The Medieval Academy of America is the largest organization in the world promoting excellence in the field of medieval studies. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Academy was founded in 1925 and comprises more than 3500 members worldwide. Among other activities, the Academy publishes the quarterly journal Speculum and awards more than a dozen prizes, grants, and fellowships. In 2016, the Council of the Medieval Academy voted to add an annual Digital Humanities Prize to its slate of publication honors. More than twenty digital projects were nominated for the inaugural prize, which is being awarded to DigiPal. The Prize will be presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy, to be held at the University of Toronto from April 6-8. More information about the Medieval Academy can be found at <a href="http://medievalacademy.org">http://medievalacademy.org</a>.</blockquote>
<p>Congratulations again to everyone in the rapidly growing DigiPal community, and I look forward to working with you all more in the years to come.</p>
<h3>Links and References</h3>
<ul>
<li>The DigiPal Project Team: <a href="http://www.digipal.eu/about/project-team/">http://www.digipal.eu/about/project-team/</a></li>
<li>The Models of Authority Project Team: <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk/about/project-team/">http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk/about/project-team/</a></li>
<li>The Conqueror's Commissioners Project Team: <a href="http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/about/project-team/">http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/about/project-team/</a></li>
<li>The free, open-source code for the DigiPal framework: <a href="https://github.com/kcl-ddh/digipal">https://github.com/kcl-ddh/digipal</a></li>
<li>Documentation for installing and using the DigiPal framework: <a href="https://github.com/kcl-ddh/digipal/wiki">https://github.com/kcl-ddh/digipal/wiki</a></li>
<li>The Medieval Academy of America (MAA): <a href="http://medievalacademy.org">http://medievalacademy.org</a></li>
<li>The MAA Digital Humanities Prize: <a href="https://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/page/DHPrize">https://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/page/DHPrize</a></li>
<li>Citiation of the inaugural MAA DH Prize (2017): <a href="http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/maa-blog-inaugural-medieval-academy-digital-humanities-prize/">http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/maa-blog-inaugural-medieval-academy-digital-humanities-prize/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>[<em>This article has been cross-posted with minor changes on the <a href="http://www.digipal.eu/blog/digipal-wins-inaugural-maa-digital-humanities-prize/">DigiPal</a>, <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk/blog/digipal-wins-inaugural-maa-digital-humanities-prize/">Models of Authority</a> and <a href="http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/digipal-wins-inaugural-maa-digital-humanities-prize/">Conqueror's Commissioners</a> websites.</em>]</p>Exon Domesday at Kalamazoo 20162016-05-10T20:55:38+00:002016-05-10T20:57:59+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/exon-domesday-at-kalamazoo-2016/<p>The <a href="http://www.modelsofauthority.ac.uk">Models of Authority</a> and Exon Domesday projects will be represented at the 51st International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in 2016. We have two sessions, with details below, and we hope to see you there.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Sunday, May 15, 8:30–10:00am</strong><br/><strong>Session 494, Fetzer 1005</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Models of Authority: Searching Questions for Medieval Scottish Charters, <em>Stewart J. Brookes, King's College London</em></li>
<li>What Order Are My Pages? Bringing Codicology to DigiPal, <em>Peter A. Stokes, King’s College London</em></li>
<li>Visualizing Manuscript Content through the Collation Project, <em>Dorothy Carr Porter, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies</em></li>
</ol></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Sunday, May 15, 10:30am–noon</strong><br/><strong>Session 522, Fetzer 1005</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Visualizing the Roman de la Rose Digital Library: New Pathways to Manuscript Studies, <em>Kristen Mapes, Michigan State Univ.</em></li>
<li>Scaling Up: Macroanalysis and Manuscripts, <em>Benjamin L. Albritton, Stanford Univ. Libraries</em></li>
<li>Beyond 2D: Representing the Materiality of Medieval Manuscripts, <em>William F. Endres, Univ. of Oklahoma</em></li>
</ol></blockquote>MMSDA Public Lecture: Modeling Textuality2016-04-27T08:42:51+00:002016-04-27T08:43:01+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/mmsda-public-lecture-modeling-textuality/<p>I'm happy to announce that Dr Arianna Ciula will be giving a public lecture on 'Material culture and societal resonance in Digital Humanities: Modelling Textuality' in London on Wednesday. This is part of the 'Medieval and Modern Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age' (MMSDA) course which is running again in London and Cambridge next week (as reported in <a href="http://localhost:8080/blog/medieval-and-modern-manuscript-studies-in-the-digital-age-mmsda-2016/">an earlier post</a>). The course is available to registered participants only (and is now very much full!), but two lectures next week will be public. The abstract for the talk is as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<h2>Material culture and societal resonance in Digital Humanities: Modelling Textuality</h2>
<p><strong>When</strong>: 6 May 2016: 5.30pm - 7.30pm<br/><strong>Where</strong>: Gordon Room/G34, Senate House<br/><strong>To Register</strong>: E-mail <a href="mailto:IESEvents@sas.ac.uk">IESEvents@sas.ac.uk</a></p>
<p>Modelling is claimed to be a core research methodology in Digital Humanities. Inspired by a material culture framework, this lecture will reflect on the concept of modelling and its practices in particular with respect to textuality. While extensible to other cultural artefacts, the main remit of this lecture will be the modelling process of texts-bearing historical documents. By claiming that modelling is a meaning-making process, the lecture will emphasise the potential of Digital Humanities research to be socially resonant, for instance, with respect to public history and big data. Drawing on examples from the research conducted by the author herself as well as DiXiT fellows, the lecture will exemplify three intertwined levels of modelling textuality in the digital environment:</p>
<ol>
<li>image and document-based modelling of the material sources;</li>
<li>modelling of the materiality of research publications and collections;</li>
<li>modelling of the socio-cultural agencies shaping the understanding and historical interpretations of the documents and texts.</li>
</ol></blockquote>John Coffin Memorial Lecture in Palaeography2016-04-21T17:05:56+00:002016-04-21T17:06:45+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/john-coffin-memorial-lecture-in-palaeography/<p>Although focussing on content rather later than Exon Domesday, the John Coffin Memorial Lecture in Palaeography may well be of interest. It is always a very worthwhile lecture, and this year promises to be no exception. Full details are available on the <a href="http://www.sas.ac.uk/support-research/public-events/2016/john-coffin-memorial-lecture-palaeography-2016">Institute of English Studies website</a>, including information on how to register, and a copy of the essential details is below. I wil certainly be attending, and I hope to see you there.</p>
<p></p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> 11/05/2016 - 17:30 - 19:00<br/><strong>Institute:</strong> Institute of English Studies<br/><strong>Type:</strong> Lecture<br/><strong>Venue:</strong> The Chancellor's Hall, First Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU</p>
<p>Daniel Wakelin (Jeremy Griffiths Professor of Palaeography, University of Oxford)</p>
<p>'Let me slip into something less comfortable': Gothic <em>Textualis </em>by Accident and by Design</p>
<p>This lecture concerns the supposed 'decadence' of late gothic <em>textualis</em>, especially the more formal grades, whether it entailed effort or conscious design, and instances when individuals misunderstood it or slipped.</p>
<p>Attendance free. Part of the Medieval Manuscripts Seminar Series.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/events/Lectures/John%20Coffin%202016%20poster%20+%20bleed_Layout%201_EP%20reduced%20size%20V1.pdf">John Coffin Memorial Annual Lecture Flyer</a></p>
<p><em>For additional information please contact <a href="mailto:IESEvents@sas.ac.uk">IESEvents@sas.ac.uk</a>.</em></p>
</blockquote>Medieval and Modern Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age (MMSDA) 20162016-02-01T16:22:27+00:002016-02-01T16:22:31+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/medieval-and-modern-manuscript-studies-in-the-digital-age-mmsda-2016/<p>It's official: applications for MMSDA 2016 are now open. It's a short application period this year, so be sure to move quickly.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Medieval and Modern Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age (MMSDA)</strong><br/><strong>2 – 6 May 2016, Cambridge and London</strong></p>
<p>We are very pleased to announce the sixth year of this course, funded by the Digital Scholarly Editions Initial Training Network (DiXiT), and run by King’s College London with the University of Cambridge and the Warburg Institute. The course will run in two parallel strands: one on medieval and the other on modern manuscripts.</p>
<p>The course is open to any doctoral students working with manuscripts. It involves five days of intensive training on the analysis, description and editing of medieval or modern manuscripts to be held jointly in Cambridge and London. Participants will receive a solid theoretical foundation and hands-on experience in cataloguing and editing manuscripts for both print and digital formats.</p>
<p>The first half of the course involves morning classes and then afternoon visits to libraries in Cambridge and London. Participants will view original manuscripts and gain practical experience in applying the morning’s themes to concrete examples. In the second half we will address the cataloguing and description of manuscripts in a digital format with particular emphasis on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). These sessions will also combine theoretical principles and practical experience and include supervised work on computers.</p>
<p>The course is free of charge but is open only to doctoral students (PhD or equivalent). It is aimed at those writing dissertations relating to medieval or modern manuscripts, especially those working on literature, art or history. Eight bursaries will be available for travel and accommodation. There are thirty vacancies across the medieval and modern strands, and preference will be given to those considered by the selection panel likely to benefit most from the course. Applications close at <strong>5pm GMT on 22 February 2016</strong> but early registration is strongly recommended.</p>
<p>For further details see <a href="http://dixit.uni-koeln.de/mmsda/">http://dixit.uni-koeln.de/mmsda/</a> or contact <a href="mailto:dixit-mmsda@uni-koeln.de">dixit-mmsda@uni-koeln.de</a>.</p>
</blockquote>Conqueror's Commissioners Project at TEI Lyon 20152015-08-25T18:06:18+00:002015-09-20T23:47:07+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/conquerors-commissioners-project-at-tei-lyon-2015/<p>The Conqueror's Commissioners project will be represented at the next Annual Conference and Members Meeting of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) in Lyon on 26–31 October 2015. I will be presenting the <a href="http://localhost:8080/blog/modelling-codicology-i-sequence-in-gatherings-folios-and-pages/">codicological model</a> that I am developing for this project, showing also how we are planning to use it in practice. Further details of the conference are at http://tei2015.huma-num.fr/ and I hope to see you there.</p>Modelling Codicology I: Sequence in Gatherings, Folios and Pages2015-08-25T18:02:28+00:002015-08-25T18:03:49+00:00Peter Stokeshttp://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/author/pstokes/http://www.exondomesday.ac.uk/blog/modelling-codicology-i-sequence-in-gatherings-folios-and-pages/<p>[<em>This blog was first posted on the <a href="http://www.digipal.eu/blog/modelling-codicology-i-sequence-in-gatherings-folios-and-pages/">DigiPal website</a> on 2 February 2015 but is reproduced here as it is particularly relevant to this project.</em>]</p>
<p>One interesting complication of some medieval manuscripts such as <em>Liber Wigornensis</em> and the Exon Domesday book is that we do not know the original order of the gatherings. In fact, one of the few things that we know for sure for Exon Domesday is that the order as we have it now is almost certainly not the original. In the Conqueror's Commissioners project we are producing a digital edition of the manuscript, and so rather than presenting a fixed volume we are hoping to present it in a format whereby you can change the order of the pages yourself and see how the text changes as a result. However, as we all know, the order of pages is not entirely arbitrary: some sequences are more likely than others, and some are physically impossible. A page cannot have both a hair and a flesh side; a folio cannot be both a bifolium and a singleton; and so on. As a first step, then, I have tried to state as many of these definitions and constraints as I can think of, as precisely as possible. A first draft is presented below: please do have a look and send me any comments or corrections, preferably via the 'comments' box below.</p>
<h3>Codicological Constraints</h3>
<ol>
<li>All Folios comprise exactly two Pages.</li>
<li>For parchment, Pages must be either Hair side (H) or Flesh side (F). A Folio must comprise one H Page and one F Page.</li>
<li>For parchment, Pages must be one of Ruling side, Non-Ruling side, or Unruled. A Folio must comprise either one Ruling and one Non-Ruling Page, or two Unruled Pages.<ol>
<li>Pages normally have further properties, for example a given color in the case of parchment.</li>
<li>Folios normally have further properties, for example thickness and stiffness; potentially color in the case of paper.</li>
</ol></li>
<li>A Folio might stand on its own or might be conjoint with another Folio. A standalone folio is called a <em>singleton</em>; the pair of conjoint Folios together is called a <em>bifolium </em>(plural <em>bifolia</em>).</li>
<li>A Gathering comprises one or more Folios<ol>
<li>Any bifolia in a single Gathering must be nested within each other; there is therefore at most one outermost bifolium in any gathering. In principle there can be any number of singletons. </li>
</ol></li>
<li>Sequences of Pages are ordered, as are sequences of Folios and sequences of Gatherings.<ol>
<li>By convention the first Page of a Folio is called the <em>recto</em> and the second page the <em>verso</em>. [Notice that this means that recto and verso are reversed in right-to-left writing systems.]</li>
<li>Rule 5 combined with Rule 2 above requires that every Folio must be either H then F, or F then H. [In practice, it may be more efficient and generalizable to record it this way than associate H and F at the Page level.]</li>
</ol></li>
<li>The order of Pages and Folios is subject to hard constraints. These result from definitions or the bounds of physical possibility and so cannot be broken under any circumstances:<ol>
<li>The recto of one Folio must be the same H/F type as the verso of the conjoint Folio (if there is one). In other words, if the first recto of a bifolium is H then the corresponding verso must be F (from 6 above); the recto of the conjoint folio must then also be F and the verso of the conjoint folio must be H. Alternatively if the recto of a bifolium is F then the sequence is inverted. Bifolia must therefore be one of two types: HFFH or FHHF.</li>
<li>Bifolia must nest and cannot overlap.</li>
<li>Two Pages associated with a given Folio must always be associated with the same Folio (although the position of the Folio may change, as may the relative order of Pages: see 8.2 below).</li>
<li>Two Folios that are identified as conjoint in one bifolium must always be part of the same bifolium (unless a mistake was made in collating, which is possible). In other words, changing the sequence of folios must not result in two conjoint folios becoming disjoint.<ol>
<li>Rules 7.3 and 7.4 imply that four Pages associated with the same bifolium must always be associated with the same bifolium.</li>
</ol></li>
</ol></li>
<li>The order of Pages is also subject to strong constraints: these can be broken but only very rarely.<ol>
<li>Bifolia are normally ruled either before or after folding. [It's physically possible to rule partly before and partly after folding, but I am not aware of any examples.]<ol>
<li>If a given bifolium is ruled before folding then the Non-Ruling/Ruling sides are subject to the same constraints as Hair and Flesh above (all bifolia must be either NRRN or RNNR, and so on).</li>
<li>If a given bifolium is ruled after folding then the Non-Ruling/Ruling sides are subject to the HF constraints, except that permissible patterns are either RNRN or NRNR.</li>
<li>Similarly, other properties of Pages referred to in 3.1 above also normally extend across bifolia in the pattern XYYX.</li>
<li>Similarly, other properties of Folios referred to in 3.2 above also normally extend to the conjoint folio in the same bifolium. For example, a bifolium is very unlikely to comprise one thick and one thin folios, but is much more likely to comprise two thick folios or two thin folios; and so on. </li>
</ol></li>
<li>It can normally be assumed that the relative order of Pages in a given Folio is fixed, i.e. that a recto Page is always a recto and a verso always a verso.<ol>
<li>Exceptions are possible: a singleton or bifolium could be removed from the book, reversed, and bound in again. [This is very rare but is possisble – an example is <a href="https://www.digipal.eu/digipal/manuscripts/1181/">'Dunstan's Classbook'</a>.]</li>
<li>A singleton is 'reversed' by swapping the order of the two Pages for the relevant Folio: i.e. the recto becomes the verso and vice versa.</li>
<li>A bifolium is 'reversed' by swapping the order of the two Folios, but <em>not</em> the order of the two Pages in each Folio. Thus the sequence of Pages ABCD becomes CDAB. <ol>
<li>This in turn implies that reversing a singleton or bifolium inverts the H/F and R/N types. Thus an HF singleton becomes FH if reversed; an HFFH bifolium becomes FHHF; and so on.</li>
</ol></li>
</ol></li>
<li>If a Text continues from Page A to Page B then it can be assumed that Page B must immediately follow Page A. <br/><ol>
<li>This implies further constraints on the sequence of Folios and Gatherings if Page A and Page B fall into different Folios or Gatherings.</li>
</ol></li>
</ol></li>
<li>The order of Folios and Gatherings is subject to light constraints. These are assumed to hold if there is no evidence to the contrary but are broken relatively often in practice:<ol>
<li>If some bifolia are ruled as a unit and there is no evidence to the contrary then it is possible that all bifolia are so ruled. This is particularly likely for bifolia in a given Gathering, less likely across Gatherings.</li>
<li>If two Folios which are not conjoint have exactly the same ruling and pricking then they are likely to be in the same Gathering. The more exact the match the more likely the Gathering is the same, although even a perfect match does not give certainty.</li>
<li>The order of Pages in a given Folio is relatively unlikely to change; the order of Folios in a Gathering is somewhat unlikely to change; the order of Gatherings in a book is relatively likely to change.</li>
<li>The position of a singleton is more likely to change than that of a bifolium.</li>
<li>If a Text at the end of a Folio breaks off abruptly and is followed by a different Text on the following Folio, then it is likely that the two Folios should not be in sequence.<ol>
<li>The abrupt change may be because the Folios are in the 'incorrect' order. If so then there exists a 'correct' order in which the Text does not break off but is complete, in which case this sequence is to be preferred.</li>
<li>Alternatively, the abrupt change may be because one or more Folios are lost. If so then there is no order in which the Text is complete, and so the 'correct' sequence will still include this abrupt change. </li>
</ol></li>
<li>If a Text ends at the end of a Folio and a new Text begins on the following Folio then the two Folios need not be in sequence. (Converse of 9.5 above)</li>
<li>For both 9.5 and 9.6, the likelihood that they are not in sequence increases if:<ol>
<li>The two texts are written in different Hands.</li>
<li>The two texts are in different Gatherings.</li>
<li>The first text is followed by blank space for the rest of the Folio</li>
<li>The first text is followed by blank space for the rest of the Gathering.<ol>
<li>If all of 9.7.1–4 hold for case 9.6 then it is near certain that the gatherings were produced at different times, particularly if the ruling and pricking are different. </li>
</ol></li>
</ol></li>
<li>If a Text at the end of a Folio is crammed into the end of the verso but then continues on the following Folio, then it is likely that the two Folios are in different but sequential Gatherings.</li>
<li>In our context (eleventh-century England), a Gathering is usually has eight or ten folios and is unlikely to have more than twelve; the likelihood of more than twelve drops quickly to vanishing. (This depends on the time and place, however.)</li>
<li>Gatherings of fewer than eight folios are not uncommon. Single-folio gatherings are unlikely.</li>
<li>Gatherings are more likely to consist primarily of bifolia with fewer singletons.</li>
<li>The normal assumption is that a book is designed with largely the same number of bifolia in each Gathering. (There are relatively numerous examples where this does not hold, though!)</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>