Manuscript transcriptions

You can select and compare text transcriptions from any of the 121 text witnesses by using the controls in the upper right-hand corner of this screen.

• The “add witness ... ” drop-down menu allows you to select and compare up to four manuscripts at any one time.

• Under “Settings” you can select your preferred ‘Global Viewing Mode’ applied to the “Browse” viewing mode:

• “Facsimile” displays transcriptions with a layout and visual style reflecting the original manuscript as closely as possible.

• “Edition” displays transcriptions in a more readable style (resembling that of a modern edition).

• “Synchronise by word” is a viewing mode in which every collated word becomes a link. Clicking on a word synchronises all open transcriptions to that word. This mode works well only for chapters for which collation data is available.

• “DMF” is a mode in which each word becomes a link to the online Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (DMF). Clicking on a word opens a window listing the relevant lemmatised entry or entries on the DMF website.

• Under ‘Orientation’ you can choose between ‘Horizontal’ and ‘Vertical’ viewing.

• “Browse” and “Collate” are viewing modes.

“Browse” is more suitable for exploring documents generally. “Collate” is for conducting word-by-word comparisons across manuscripts (collation of witnesses). This mode works well only for chapters for which collation data is available.

• Once you have a transcription open, use 'Navigate' (top-right-hand corner, in RED) to navigate through the transcription by either Folio, Manuscript Chapter, or SHF Chapter (click on one of the 3 radio buttons to the left to make your choice). When the manuscript that is opened has been used in a modern edition, a fourth option to navigate becomes available, i.e. using the page numbers of the modern edition.

• Clicking on ‘Preferences’ (top-right-hand corner, in RED) allows you to alter the Display mode for showing transcriptions (again, click on one of the 3 radio buttons to the left to make your choice).

• For the casual user we recommend selecting Besançon MS 864 Transcription and Besançon MS 865 Transcription which cover, respectively, Book I and Books II-III of the Chroniques. These have corresponding English translations for selected chapters from Book I, Book II and Book III.

• High-resolution images for some of the manuscript witnesses are viewable using the Virtual Vellum external viewer, for which you will need to have pre-installed Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Version 1.5 or above. The Java Runtime download is free and can be obtained from Oracle.