Using the Site

METS sorts by Text and Edition. Edition connotes the online version of a printed volume, complete with any scholarly apparatus by the editor, such as notes, bibliography, etc. Text specifically refers to the Middle English (or otherwise original language/translation) text that has been edited in an edition. An edition like Harriet Hudson’s William Caxton’s Paris and Vienne and Blanchardyn and Eglantine, for example, contains two texts: the romances Paris and Vienne and Blanchardyn and Eglantine. Thus, you can access these two romances either at the edition level (Hudson’s Caxton edition) or at the text level (individually selecting Paris or Blanchardyn). To preserve consistency of Texts that are contained within volumes, we have combined some multi-volume editions into a single Edition landing page. Thus, all three volumes of Russell Peck’s Confessio Amantis are grouped into one Edition, with all eight books of the Confessio grouped into one Text.

One of the most exciting features of the website is the associated metadata that accompanies each text and edition. For the purposes of navigation, make note of whether an edition is tagged as TEI-XML or Legacy HTML. As we update our corpus, the Legacy HTML editions will be replaced by TEI-XML editions, but for now, there are a few minor differences to be aware of in how these formats work. 

You can use filters to search across texts and editions, utilizing associated metadata to narrow your results. When you click on either Texts or Editions in the upper left header, you will see a list of texts or editions, with filters on the right side of the screen. You can choose to filter texts by Form (poetry, prose, drama, codex, music), Language, Time Period, and Category (i.e. genre). Choose your desired metadata filters, decide how you would like to sort your results, and click the “Filter” button.

There is also a keyword “Search” field in the upper right corner of the header. This search function will search across the metadata associated with each text and edition. Please note that it will not search across the full text of an edition. For example, if you search “owl,” your results will be “The Owl and the Nightingale” text and The Owl and the Nightingale and the English Poems of Oxford, Jesus College, MS 29 (II) edition, not every instance of the word “owl” across all METS volumes.

Some additional tips for searching: 

• The Search function does not support full Boolean searches, but utilizes the following commands:
  • AND is implied
  • OR (ex: Gower OR Lydgate)
• Search gives equal weight to Contributor and Title. 
• For Texts, only Title is indexed. For Editions, Title, Description, and Edition are indexed. 
  • In other words: searching for "Fein" will bring up Editions edited by Susanna Fein, but not individual texts. Searching "Owl" will bring up "The Owl and the Nightingale" and The Owl and the Nightingale and the English Poems of Oxford, Jesus College, MS 29 (II)

The Reader View is the interface for opening and perusing a text. You can access it by clicking on the “Start Reading” button at the top of any Text or Edition, or click directly on items in the Table of Contents which link to the content pages. Once in the Reader View, you can access the Table of Contents at any time by clicking on the square button in the upper left hand side, and use the links to select another section to open.

When viewing a text in the Reader View, the title is always visible in the top bar, as is the edition that contains it. You can return to the Edition page by clicking this edition title at any time. Use the arrows on the bottom of the screen to page through the edition sequentially. The titles of the previous and following sections are always visible next to the arrows. Exit the reader view by clicking the “Exit” arrow in the top left corner. If you are currently reading a Text, note that the Exit button will lead you directly to the relevant Text page. You can always return to the edition that contains the text by clicking the edition link under the Text’s title. 

The website is designed with TEI-XML functionality in mind, so many of our most powerful features are available only on editions that have been encoded in this format. 

In TEI-XML editions, all notes and glosses can be toggled on or off in “Visibility settings” (the eye-shaped icon) on the left side of the Reader View. Users can select which indicators they would like to see in the text. “n” indicates footnotes, “t” textual notes, “e” explanatory notes, and “g” glosses. Users can also toggle all at once by using the “select all” checkbox. Users who would like to see the text, glosses, and notes as they appear in the print edition may download the PDF.

In TEI-XML editions, we also feature more granular sections. For example, any headnotes typically found in our Explanatory Notes or Textual Notes are separated out as miniature introductions to a given text, and can be accessed separately. We have also separated the Explanatory Notes and Textual Notes into their own pages, which can be accessed either through the Table of Contents or through their corresponding text. The arrows that follow each note allow for users to easily toggle back to the point in the text where the note occurs. 

Footnotes (n) and glosses (in prose) open in a notes drawer at the bottom of the page, which is called “show glosses.” This drawer opens automatically when a footnote or gloss indicator is clicked on. Users can manually open it by clicking “Show Glosses” at the bottom right-hand corner of the Reader View.

The Legacy HTML format preserves editions as they were on our old website, but updates them with our new Reader View. However, because these editions are not yet encoded in TEI-XML, the functionality of Legacy HTML is a little different. 

Much like our old website, all notes and glosses are found in the notes drawer, accessible by clicking on the note indicators or footnote numbers, or manually opening it by clicking “Show Glosses” at the bottom right-hand corner of the Reader View. Because the notes drawer holds all notes and glosses, notes will not have their own page in an edition, so to access them users must first enter a given text/section. Legacy HTML editions also preserve styles that METS no longer uses in new editions. Users will thus find prose notes and glosses referenced by line number instead of paragraph number, and “see note” indicators in marginal glosses for verse.

We have done our best to preserve the look of our Legacy HTML editions. That being said, our Reader View is designed for our TEI-XML editions, so some aspects of our Legacy HTML editions might not display as well as they previously had. For example, users might encounter minor issues with the display of subscripts, and on occasion the notes drawer needs to be manually opened by clicking “Show Glosses.” There may be occasional misalignment between line numbers, texts, and glosses. Spacing may also be inconsistent at times within notes.

The current website is still under construction, and so we are still actively working on aspects of the site. As time passes expect to see improvements in how our texts are displayed. If you want to share feedback on our new site with us, please use this form.