Abstract - Variance in Uniformity. On the Automatic Transcription of Parisian Bibles
International Medieval Congress (IMC 2021), Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. July 2021. Niccolò N. Cappelletto, Estelle Guéville and David J. Wrisley
Abstract
Computational text studies have illustrated that micro-features are useful for textual forensics (Pinche et al, 2019; Byszuk and Khismatulin, 2019; Kestemont et al, 2019). One of the characteristics of Parisian Bibles that we believe deserves more attention is the way that text and script are characterized as “uniform.” However, we believe that the abbreviations along with the letter forms are worth a closer look: they could be markers of scribal practice and that studying them, in combination with material traces and comparative analysis, might reveal some interesting information about date and location as well as literacy habits in the scriptorium.
Combined with material evidence of rewriting and correction, as well as approaches such as rolling stylometry that aims at detecting multi-authorship in texts, we might see interest emerging in the detection of multiple scribes in corpora (not only a single codex) through word-based or abbreviation-based approaches. One of the obvious uses of such automatic transcription would be the creation of larger contexts in which we can begin to retell the history of the mass production of Bibles. Picking up on recent progress in fragmentology, our approach might also be able to corroborate material, codicological evidence related to the identification or localization of split codices or fragments of Parisian Bibles dispersed throughout the world.
For any inquiries, suggestions, requests, the team can be reached at parisbible@gmail.com
Niccolò N. Cappelletto, Estelle Guéville and David Joseph Wrisley
Suggested citation
Cappelletto, Niccolò Acram, Guéville, Estelle, and Wrisley, David Joseph. (16 September 2021). Abstract - Variance in Uniformity. On the Automatic Transcription of Parisian Bibles. Paris Bible Project. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8040632
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