15th Century Manuscript Transcription!
On page f069r of this 15th century manuscript of medical knowledge, there are various pieces of advice that were given based on the stage of the moon. In the second paragraph, I found that during the moon phase Piscis, it’s a great time to plant trees. During this time as well, you should buy land or houses. It’s also adviced to not make enemies during this time. I infered that the first paragraph was most likely talking about a different moon phase then, and how one should act during that time. In the first paragraph, we’re informed that it’s a good idea to travel, let blood and take medicine during this time. You can take a look for yourself below and anaylze the text, and don’t forget reading out loud is a lot easier for comprehension.
is a signe of Water heldynge. that signe is
stedfast hoot and moist. Sangweynn of that kynde
of that eyre. that signe of that tyme is good
to sette. & to ympe trees. and to ask dette. & to lete
blood. and forto make fundementes of a trewe
stondynge castel. and of housynge of gret costa-
ges. that every man coveytith to be wel duryng
It is forto eschue to travayle. either forto go by
the sees and forto hele syke men. & forto take eny
medicyne.
<head>Piscis coold & moist.</head>
Whan the mone is in piscibus. that is a signe
of fysshe & is coolde & moist. fleumatyke of kynde
of that Water. tyme is good forto bygge &
forto selle. & forto chalenge. forto rowen. &
forto sende lettres & messangers. & forto bygghe. hou-
synge. forto sette trees. and forto take medycyne.
and also forto entrete of pees & love. and of
accorde. In that signe it is to eschue forto mete
with thyn enemyes or with hostes of kynges.
The following is a link to my transcription in the digital critical edition!: https://technologies-of-history.github.io/dyngley-edition/folios/#/ec/f152/f/f152/text
Learning to read and transcribe middle english was a lot more difficult than you’d expect. It’s incredible how much a language can evolve over time in spelling, grammmar and writing style. At first, I had to take it word by word and slowly figure out what things were down to the letter (I mean really, you’d be surprised at how different some of those letters are). Eventually though, you start to remember what letters are what, and by that point you can begin to sound out sentences. This made comprehension so much easier. Also, having a buddy review my document was a huge help. Sometimes it just takes a fresh pair of eyes on a document to figure out what a word or capital letter was.
By utilizing XML tags in this document, we can create a transcription that mimics the structure of the words on the page. Pamela Smith explains that a required act of translation is to take tacit knowledge and make it explicit. If I just took all the text from the manuscript and typed it in a google doc, we wouldn’t get how the manuscript was stuctured or headed. This is why XML is awesome, because we can actually define how the manuscript is structured and headed in our transcription. With digital conversion, certain aspects are going to be lost along the way. XML allows us to be more digitally accurate to what the original manuscript is.