3.  Short-View Descriptive Elements (<msHeading>)

<msHeading>  contains brief database-like statements about key elements of a manuscript, intended for quick viewing by the user.

Historically, the briefest possible meaningful description of a manuscript consists of no more than a title, which will often have been enough to identify a manuscript in a small collection (e.g. ‘Polychronicon’) because the identity of the author is implicit.  Where a title does not imply the author, and thus is insufficient to identify the main text of a manuscript, the author has to be stated explicitly (e.g. ‘Augustinus, Sermones’, ‘Cicero, Letters’).  Many inventories of manuscripts consist of no more than the author and title, with some form of copy-specific identifier, such as a shelfmark or secundo folio reference (e.g. ‘Arch. B. 3. 2: Evangelium Matthei cum glossa’, ‘126.  Isidori Originum libri octo’, ‘Biblia Hieronimi, 2o fo. opus est’).  In the present DTD, identifying numbers such as shelfmarks are marked-up using the <msIdentifier> element (see above), while the author and title are tagged using the <msHeading> element.

Most users of medieval manuscripts would probably agree that, after author and title, the date and place of production of the manuscript are the next most important features to record: knowledge of these four pieces of data alone will often allow the reader to form a fairly reliable impression of other features such as the support, format, size of the typical quire, ruling instrument and layout, type of script, type and extent of decoration, and so on.

The <msHeading> element is intended to provide to the user an at-a-glance impression of a manuscript, the minimum of essential information, such as might be displayed or printed as a heading to a catalogue description.  It may contain PCDATA or one or more of the following eight optional sub-elements:   <author>, <respStmt>, <title>, <origPlace>, <origDate>, <textLang>, <writingSystem>, and  <note>.  The elements may occur in any order, and may be repeated within the  <msHeading>.

Note:  It must be emphasised that the <msHeading> element is not intended to stand in place of a brief description for purposes of computer readability.  The description of the manuscript, however short, should be encoded using the appropriate elements located within the appropriate wrapper elements, such as <msItem> or <history>, so as to offer a reliable and consistent location for indexing or searching by a search engine.

Examples (but see <msItem>, <physDesc> or <history> for fuller descriptions of these elements):

<author>

The <author> element is used to encode the name of a person with primary responsibility for the intellectual content of the manuscript

<author>Cicero</author>
<author>Guillaume de Lorris</author> and <author> Jean de Meun</author>

<respStmt>

The <respStmt> element supplies the name and task of a person other than the author, who is responsible for some aspect of the intellectual content of the manuscript.

<author>Diogenes Laertius</author>, <respStmt><resp>in the translation of </resp><name role="translator">Ambrogio Traversari</name></respStmt>

<title>

The <title> element contains the word or words that identify a given work by a name that may be specific to that work or conventional.

<title type="distinctive">Epistolae ad familiares</title>
<title type="distinctive">Roman de la rose</title>
<title type="generic">Gospels</title>, <note>with Glossa ordinaria</note>

When a manuscript consists of more than two or three individual works, the <author> and <title> elements may be used repetitively, or <title> may contain a short, comprehensive title assigned by the cataloguer to sum up the book’s overall contents:

<author>Isidore of Seville</author>, <title>De catalogo virorum illustrium</title> and <author>Hugh of St. Victor</author>, <title>De sacramentis</title>
<title>Historical works, including chronicles and genealogies</title>
<title>Miscellanea umanistica</title>

<origPlace>

The place of origin of a manuscript is encoded using the <origPlace> element.  Since no searching is intended to take place on this location (<msHeading>) the encoding may remain at a light level.

<origPlace>France</origPlace>
<origPlace>Italy, the Abbey of Montecassino</origPlace>
<origPlace>Southern <country>France</country> or northern <country>Spain</country></origPlace>

<origDate>

The date of production of a manuscript, recorded in any format, is encoded using the <origDate> element.  Since no searching is intended to take place on this location (<msHeading>), the encoding may remain at a light level.

<origDate notBefore="1490" notAfter="1500">s. XV ex</origDate>
<origDate notBefore="1490" notAfter="1500">Late fifteenth century</origDate>
<origDate notBefore="1490" notAfter="1500">circa 1490-1500</origDate>
<origDate notBefore="1493" notAfter="1496">Dated 1493 and 1496</origDate>

<textLang>

The <textLang> element encodes the names of the languages that are cited in the catalogue as present in a manuscript.

<title>Book of Hours</title>, in <textLang langKey="lat">Latin</textLang> and <textLang langKey="fra">French</textLang>
<title> Lives of saints</title>, in <textLang>Middle English (Midlands dialect)</textLang>

<writingSystem>

<writingSystem> is used to designate a manuscript’s writing system or alphabet, of which the script is the particular embodiment.

<writingSystem>in Glagolitic</writingSystem>

<note>

Where the cataloguer (or legacy data) demands that further information should be included as part of the heading of a manuscript description, this may be enclosed within the <note> tag.

<note> in a romanesque blind-stamped binding</note>
<note> with the arms of Francesco Gonzaga</note>
<note> the author’s autograph copy</note>

Examples of <msHeading> (human-readable) and of the same information as brief description (human- and machine-readable):

<msHeading>

<author>Marsilius de Inghen</author>,
<title>Abbreviata phisicorum Aristotelis</title>;
<origPlace>Italy</origPlace>,
<origDate>1463</origDate>

</msHeading>

<msDescription dateAttrib="dated">

<msIdentifier><idno>xxxx</idno></msIdentifier>
<msContents><msItem><author>Marsilius de Inghen</author>, <title="distinctive">Abbreviata phisicorum Aristotelis</title></msItem></msContents>
<history><origPlace>Italy</origPlace>,
<origDate evidence="internal">1463</origDate></history>

</msDescription>

<msHeading>

<author>Johannes de Rupella</author>.
<title>Sermones de sanctis</title>.
<origPlace>Italy, perhaps Florence</origPlace>.
<origDate>13th century, second half</origDate>.

</msHeading>

<msDescription>

<msIdentifier><idno>xxxx</idno></msIdentifier>
<msContents><msItem><author>Johannes de Rupella</author>, <title type="generic">Sermones de sanctis</title></msItem></msContents>.
<history><origPlace>Italy, perhaps Florence</origPlace>.
<origDate evidence="attributed" notBefore="1250" notAfter="1299">13th century, second half</origDate>.
</history>

</msDescription>

<msHeading>

<title>Manuel des Pecchez</title>, in
<textLang>French</textLang>
<origPlace>England</origPlace>
<origDate>s. xiv<hi rend="superscript">1</hi></origDate>
<note>Copy that belonged to Samuel Pepys</note>.

</msHeading>

<msDescription>

<msIdentifier>
< idno>xxxx</idno></msIdentifier>
<msContents><msItem><title="distinctive">Manuel des Pecchez</title>, in <textLang langKey="fra">French</textLang></msItem>
< /msContents>.

<history>
<origPlace>England</origPlace>
<origDate notBefore="1300" notAfter="1350">s. xiv<hi rend="superscript">1</hi></origDate>.  Copy that belonged to <name role="owner" reg="Pepys, Samuel">Samuel Pepys</name>.
</history>

</msDescription>