Acta of King Henry I
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Grant Holder:
Professor Richard Sharpe
This project aims to create a critical edition of the acta of King Henry I of England, and so provide a fundamental research tool for the history of the central middle ages whose absence has been lamented for decades past. The edition will integrate with the texts the contextual information on government and local affairs essential to the interpretation of the documents, and will provide a diplomatic analysis of the acta illuminating their form and use. It will therefore allow more informed and sophisticated use of the texts by non-specialists than has previously been possible.
The MS Word (and other) files produced by this project will form the basis of a printed edition, which it is intended will be published by Oxford University Press. The Word files form a work in progress and are not for dissemination in that form. It is envisaged that my database of documents (currently in MS-Access) with links to personal and place identifiers &c. will eventually be enlarged to include the charters of Henry II (from the AHRB project in Cambridge led by Nicholas Vincent) so that the whole lot can be published electonically, but that is not covered by my current project funding.
| Project start date: 2003-10 | Project end date: 2006-09 |
Subject domains:
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| 2d Scanning and photography | Data capture |
| Collating | Data analysis |
| Collocating | Data analysis |
| Indexing | Data analysis |
| Content analysis | Data analysis |
| Text encoding - descriptive | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Text encoding - presentational | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Parsing | Data analysis |
| Stemmatics | Data analysis |
| Manual input and transcription | Data capture |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created:
Text
Software tools used:
Microsoft Word
Source material used:
The main source for these files are the 1,700 or so known acta (charters, writs, laws, letters, and other documents) of King Henry I; 189 of which survive as originals. These are found in libraries and archives across Britain and Northern France, with particularly important collections found in the British Library and Public Record Office in London, and the Blbliotheque Nationale de France and Archives Nationales in Paris. The Word files contain the texts of these documents, with editorial interventions so as to produce the best possible texts. These are then dated and annotated using the researchers' detailed knowledge of the period, so as to enhance the value of the texts for readers.
Digital resource created:
The project has produced more than 380 Word files for the beneficiary archives alone. There are many more files containing copies of charters, prosopographical notes, and so on. These files contain the Latin texts of the deeds issued by King Henry I (1100-1135) along with source and contextual notes, and are classified under standardized headings. Together these files contain the working draft of the edition of King Henry's charters. There are a number of other files (chiefly Excel files). Some of these contain information and materials that have been collected for use in annotating the documents themselves, while others assist with the management of the project ona day-to-day basis.
Data Formats created:
Microsoft Word Document (DOC)
Publications:
The following have appeared in print. Another four articles are currently in the press.
Sharpe, Richard, "The use of writs in the eleventh century." Anglo-Saxon England 32 (2003): 247-91
Karn, Nicholas and Sharpe, Richard, "Working with Anglo-Norman Royal Acta in MS-Access": Revue Publiée par l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des textes 42 (2003): 61-5.
Sharpe, Richard, "The use of writs in the eleventh century." Anglo-Saxon England 32 (2003): 247-91
Karn, Nicholas and Sharpe, Richard, "Working with Anglo-Norman Royal Acta in MS-Access": Revue Publiée par l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des textes 42 (2003): 61-5.
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Dr Nicholas Karn; Dr Mark Hagger; Dr Hugh Doherty; Professor Richard Sharpe |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Mark Hagger |
| Title | Acta of King Henry I |
| Record created | 2005-11-07 |
| Record updated | 2011-05-11 16:34 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2216 |
| Citation of record | Mark Hagger: Acta of King Henry I. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2216> created: 2005-11-07, last updated 2011-05-11 16:34 |