Full-Text Edition Module

We are launching a new functional core of Manuscriptorium — the full-text edition module! Instead of focusing primarily on images, this module places the main emphasis on textual content, which can be viewed and read in parallel with any digitised manuscript or printed book. The module consists of two parts: the Editions Catalogue and the Full-Text Editions application for reading selected texts, with the catalogue enabling not only the discovery of authors and works, but also full-text searching across particular texts.

At present, our primary focus is the conversion of older editions of medieval works of Bohemian origin, which we are bringing to a new “digital” life. In many cases, we are also visualising additional digitised manuscripts that earlier editors either intentionally omitted or were entirely unaware of. Thanks to IIIF technology, we are no longer limited to the digitised documents contained within Manuscriptorium itself, and for many editions we now also display digitised content from other foreign institutions and digital libraries.

Alongside the conversion of existing editions, the full-text module also includes original born-digital editions. In the future, it will also feature the outputs of automated transcriptions (by Handwritten Text Recognition). In addition, we will gradually publish modern translations together with selected original texts.

The first 20 texts (connected to 40 digitised documents) are now available online. Spanning nearly 700 years from the time of their creation, they encompass a wide range of genres, including hagiography, historiography, preaching, as well as devotional and university literature.

Therefore, read with us the stories of the chronicler Cosmas and his continuators, explore in detail the manuscripts of the earliest legends of Saint Wenceslaus and Saint Adalbert, or delve into the world of Old Czech prayers written by the reformer Milíč of Kroměříž!