Encoding Holinshed

Gross Text Structure

The original Perseus encoding of Holinshed's Chronicles used as its source text a double-keyed transcription of the six-volume Ellis edition held in the Tufts Library. This physical structure was decomposed into a logical structure conforming with the logical structure of the opus. That is,

• England
  • description
  • history1
  • history2
• Scotland
  • description
  • annals
  • history
• Ireland
  • cambrensis
  • continuation
  • description
  • inhabitation
  • processe
  • supplie

The Descriptions are structured by Book and Chapter; the Chronicles are structured by Chronicle (reign of a monarch). Thus the <div>s; within the Chronicles, <milestone>s corresponding with marginal <note>s marking chronology by calendar year and regnal year. Both kinds of document contain embedded documents_ (letters; treaties; and so on); these are demarked as <embeddedText>s.

Marginal notes serve a number of functions in Holinshed and in Early Modern printed texts (see Richards, J. (2012). Rhetoric. In F. Heal, I. W. Archer, & P. Kewes (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed’s Chronicles (p. 0). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199565757.013.0017) and Slights, W. W. E. (2001). Managing readers: Printed marginalia in English Renaissance books. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.)

Our encoding did not attempt a typology of marginalia; indeed, it did little more than tag them as <note place="marg"/>, except in the case of date milestones. But many of the other marginal notes should also serve as milestones, as they do in the printed text, where they function as another kind of heading to guide the reader to passages of interest.

RefsDecls

In The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's Chronicles, Tim Smith-Laing presents a scheme for referencing Holinshed's Chronicles:

1587	abbreviation	1807 edn
Vol. 1
Description of England	I,Desc.	Vol. 1
History of England	I,Hist.
Vol. 2
Description of Ireland	II,Ir.	Vol. 6
History of Ireland
Description of Scotland
History of Scotland	II,Scot.	Vol. 5
Indexes to Vols. 1 and 2
Vol. 3
Chronicles of England post-1066	III	Vols. 2,3,4