2.3 The Domain Structure
What we understand by 'domain' correlates roughly with the concept 'field' as used in register studies, i.e. a domain comprises texts that belong to the same area of life or knowledge, and thus share similar topics to some extent. This parameter makes it possible to carry out register studies with the Lampeter Corpus. As with the decades above the domain sub-corpora vary in size, in this case from 14% to 20%. The domains we have chosen for structuring the corpus, namely RELIGION, POLITICS, ECONOMY, SCIENCE, LAW, and MISCELLANEOUS, are intended to mirror as broadly as possible the scope of life as found between 1640 and 1740. A comparison of our classification, which was 'imposed' by us on the Founders' Library's Tract Collection rather than statistically derived from it, with Feather's (1986) subject analysis of British 18th-century publishing shows that it is not wide off the mark. Thus, the Lampeter Corpus can also be seen to reflect the publishing situation rather accurately - and, by extension, also the social, political and cultural situation of the time.
We have not guided the selection process with a hard and fast definition of the domains, but have worked along the lines of everyday understanding and intuitions concerning these fields. We have, however, tried to take the historical dimension into account when attributing texts to domains, e.g. the fact that 'science' then and now does not cover the same area. Therefore, the domain labels should be understood against the background of 17th- and 18th-century Britain. Another complicating factor for the domain structure is the common occurrence of 'mixed' texts, i.e. texts that cannot be classified clearly. These texts are rather typical of a time in which thinking was obviously still less compartmentalized than it is nowadays. Therefore, we have intentionally not tried to generally exclude 'mixed' texts and choose only 'pure' ones, as this would have distorted the historical situation. Our usual procedure was to let the predominant theme in a 'mixed' text determine into which domain it went or to let text type help decide the question, so that, e.g., trial proceedings will be found under LAW in the corpus even if their content is primarily political.
As the domains admit a great variety of texts, it was thought helpful to include a further three-fold subdivision with respect to content within each domain. This will be explained under the domains below. In contrast to the domains, this was not a selection parameter, but introduced later as an aid to the corpus user interested in particular topical fields only.
The corpus texts are identified by markers, which are derived from the domain structure and the chronological ordering described above. The text marker is combined of the initial letters of the domains (Rel, Pol, Ec, Sci, Law, Msc), the letter A or B to distinguish the two texts of the same domain, followed by the year of publication, yielding, e.g., EcA1641, SciB1735.
The domain RELIGION
Religious publications probably made up the largest segment of the print market throughout the period and their sheer amount can be taken as proof of great public interest in the matter in all parts of society (cf. e.g. Spufford 1981:130;138). As sermons are a particularly numerous sub-group of religious writings one of the two texts in each decade (RelA) is always a sermon, while the other is not speech-related. On the whole these writings must have exerted a considerable influence, possibly also in a linguistic respect.
The texts of this domain reflect the concerns of the period, from the problems and status of the Established Church via Anti-Catholicism to Protestant Dissent, and many of them are closely intertwined with contemporary politics. The three subdivisions of Religion are
(i) "doctrine", i.e. texts dealing with theological points (including bible exegesis) and thus also touching on points of controversy between religious groups (
),
(ii) "church affairs", i.e. texts about current events or problems within the Anglican Church itself (rel2),
(iii) "pastoral and devotional", i.e. texts reflecting more the everyday concerns of religious care-taking and private forms of religious activity (rel3).
The domain POLITICS
With regard to politics two types of texts are principally possible, i.e. (i) texts on political theory, or (ii) texts relating to current political affairs, but only the second type is commonly found in the pamphlets of the time. Apparently, the publication format of pamphlet was not seen as very suitable for the exposition of political theory. Thus, the Lampeter Corpus politics texts form a running commentary on the well-known course of (mainly British) history in the 17th and 18th centuries. The texts of this domain as a whole are characterized by a highly argumentative style of writing, and although the same can be said of individual texts from other domains, they do in that respect represent a more unified group.
Again, there are three sub-divisions, namely
(i) "British affairs", which deal with "insular" affairs going beyond England proper, i.e. involving Scotland and/or Ireland (pol1),
(ii) "English affairs", meaning domestic affairs not extending beyond England, which category virtually comes to an end with the Act of Union (pol2),
(iii) "foreign affairs", i.e. texts about foreign policy, which are relatively rare (pol3).
The domain ECONOMY
The domain name economy is not to be confused with the modern (academic) discipline of 'economics', whose beginning is best traced to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), but it represents the mass of miscellaneous writings on that topic existing before. All the texts in this domain are connected to one or the other current event or problem, and there is nothing abstract or theoretical about them. But as important economic developments started in this period, these texts represent the basis for later theoretical works. The sheer quantity of publications found on economic matters reveals great popular interest in the subject.
The domain sub-divides into
(i) "domestic economy and trade", dealing with the economic situation within England (ec1),
(ii) "foreign and colonial economy and trade", the prevalent group in this domain (ec2),
(iii) "financial", i.e. texts about the possible ways to raise revenue, in particular for the state (ec3).
The domain SCIENCE
Science, in the sense as we understand it today, is only really emerging in its modern form during the 17th and 18th 
. What one finds in the Lampeter Corpus period, especially its early part, is a gradual shift from one scientific tradition, that of the old academic, tradition-bound approach, to another, new tradition, namely that of the new rational and empirical approach known to contemporaries by the name of 'real (or natural, experimental) philosophy'. However, even this 'real philosophy' did not right from the start conform to our narrow modern definition of science, it was rather "centring on natural and mechanical problems but extending through the life sciences towards medicine and through chemistry and applied mathematics towards technology" (Hunter 1981: 32), thus exhibiting a strong utilitarian bend as well. As the domain science is supposed to reflect this varied historical picture, it contains texts representing the 'scholastic' tradition, text examples of the new science, as well as texts dealing with the professional status of scientists.
Because of the great variety in this domain it was exceptionally difficult to create the three-fold subdivision, which was therefore left with a very vague third part. It is as follows:
(i) "medicine", which today is not seen as a pure natural science, but in the past clearly belongs into that group (sci1),
(ii) "geography", a field with an especially strong attraction in a time of emerging world-wide expansion of trade, settlement and politics (sci2),
(iii) "science other" which includes a very mixed bag of different topics and approaches (sci3).
The domain LAW
This domain falls into two different groups, distinguished by the kinds of texts it contains. On the one hand, there are texts which represent genres that are typical for the legal sphere, such as, e.g., statutes. They thus belong to the domain by virtue of their text type characteristics. On the other hand, a great many texts found then deal with topics or describe events in the sphere of law, be it that they discuss particular legal cases or be it that they concern themselves with legal processes or the administration of law as such. Those texts belong here because of their chosen subject matter.
The three subdivisions in this domain are thus as just described, with (ii) being a special case of (i):
(i) "specific case discussions", dealing with individual cases of general or even controversial interest (law1),
(ii) "court records", i.e. transcriptions of legal proceedings, which can also contain some direct speech (law2),
(iii) "administration", being concerned with more technical aspects of the legal system (law3).
The domain MISCELLANEOUS
This domain proved a useful cover category in order to accomodate those kinds of texts, which are too varied in nature to fit any of the other domains or to warrant a more narrow, descriptive term.
Nevertheless, these texts represent a non-negligible segment of the press output and also seem to be typical of the time and of the publishing situation, so that it was thought necessary to include them.
The subdivisions create some order within this variety:
(i) "biographical", i.e. texts describing the life or part of the life of a person, for whatever purpose (msc1),
(ii) "current interest", i.e. texts relating some event or state of affairs which is supposed to be of general interest to the public (msc2),
(iii) "practical application or advice" comprises texts offering help with practical questions (e.g. gardening) or in the 
(msc3).
