3.2.2 The Text Headers

The text header divides into two main sections, namely

• <filedesc> File description, providing bibliographical information about the text
• <profiledesc> Profile description, supplying background data about the author and text-type information

File description

• the text identifier <title n="SciB1735"> and the title of the text, usually shortened, e.g. A defence of free-thinking in mathematics [...] (instead of the full title: "A DEFENCE OF Free-Thinking IN MATHEMATICS. In Answer To a Pamphlet of Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, intituled, Geometry no Friend to Infidelity, or a Defence of Sir Isaac Newton, and the British Mathematicians. Also an Appendix concerning Mr. Walton's Vindication of the Principles of Fluxions against the Objections contained in the Analyst. WHEREIN It is attempted to put this Controversy in such a Light as that every Reader may be able to judge thereof", which is only recoverable by looking at the relevant text file itself).
• various kinds of bibliographical information:
• a reference to the entry of the text in Wing's Short-title Catalogue <idno type="Wing"> for texts up to 1699 or in the Eighteenth-Century Short-title Catalogue <idno type="ESTC"> for later texts.
• reference to the Founders' Library's cataloguing system <idno type="Lamp">, i.e. the Tract number for the bound volume the text is found in, and the Tract Collection's catalogue entry number (e.g. for SciB1735: T464/6854).
• information given in the imprint of the original title page: the date of publication <date>, the place of publication <pubplace>, the name(s) of the printer <printer>, the publisher <publisher> and the bookseller <bookseller>. Not always is all this information present, in particular not with anonymous publications, which tried to cover their traces. Sometimes the Lampeter Catalogue or other sources supplied us with missing pieces, which we inserted in square brackets, e.g. the printer of SciA1674, T[homas] R[oycroft], is only indicated by his initials on the title page.
• the format of the original text <pubformat>, e.g. octavo, quarto etc.

Profile description

• Author
• sex and age of the author, e.g. <person role="author" sex="m" age="50:59>, where "50:59" indicates that the author was between 50 and 59 years of age at the time of writing the text. The age span given is always one whole decade, i.e. 20:29, 30:39 etc. In cases where the birth-date was unknown, we have used the time of university graduation (if available) as a basis for estimating the age (assuming that the B.A. was taken between the age of 16 and 20).

• the name of the author <persname> as stated on the title page of the text, or taken from the Lampeter Library Catalogue and in this case put in brackets [] to indicate originally anonymous publication.

• the time and place of birth, e.g. <birth><date>1685</date> Kilcrin near Thomas-town (Co. Kilkenny, Ireland)</birth> (SciB1735).

• the author's places of abode <residence> from his birth to the time of writing of text (as far as known), so that the last name in the list might be taken as the place where the text originated.

• the educational history of the author <education>, including relevant dates for the obtaining of university degrees.

• the professional and occupational career of the author <occupation>, from its beginning to the time of writing the text.

• socio-economic status: the author's own status is given <socecstatus>, as well as that of his father <socecstatuspat>, in order to make movement along the social ladder visible. The terms used for social ranks, including possible further specifications in brackets, are the following (cf. the explanation and table in 2.4. above):
I:
- aristocracy, in brackets baron, earl, duke, viscount
- higher clergy, in brackets bishop or archbishop
- gentry, in brackets knight, esquire, gentleman
II:
- professions, in brackets clergy, law, army/navy officer, academic, medicine, trade
- yeomanry
III:
- freeman, in brackets, e.g., craftsman
- husbandman
IV (lower ranks) and V (the poor) found in the Figure above do not contribute pamphlet authors.
• miscellaneous <biognote>, i.e. additional information about the author that did not fit into any of the other slots, but was considered too important to be left out, e.g. in the case of PolB1706 the <biognote> contains the following text about John Hamilton, second Lord Beilhaven: "opposed the union; supporter of the Darien scheme; married Margaret, granddaughter of John Hamilton, first Lord Beilhaven in 1675; title settled on the present John Hamilton by the above's intervention". The marriage mentioned here identifies John Hamilton as a social riser.

Not always was all of this information available; in the case of irretrievably anonymous texts this whole section is missing, whereas in other cases segments (e.g. <residence>) are left out or marked as unknown, e.g. age="unknown". In eleven cases only the name is kown and no other information whatsoever; these author are marked (*) in author appendix.

• Text
• reference to the text category classifications contained in the corpus header (cf. 3.2.1.), e.g. <catref target ="dom6 sci3 nstru2 nau1 dec10"> (SciB1735), indicating the following:
- domain science (dom6),
- subdomain "science other" (sci3),
- two textual parts, in this case body and back (nstru2 = number of structural parts: 2),
- written by one author (nau1),
- written in the tenth and last corpus decade, the 1730s (dec10)
• further characterisation of the text <keywords scheme="lamTop">, indicating the topic somewhat more clearly than possible in the domain and subdomain sections. These keywords are a completely open list. Two examples are
- <keywords scheme="lamTop"><term>mathematics</term><term>philosophy (science-religion)</term></keywords> (SciB1735) and
- <keywords scheme="lamTop"><term>Scotland</term><term>Act of Union</term></keywords> (PolB1706).
• text-type or genre self-description of the text <keywords scheme="lamGen"> / <term type="self">, if explicitly given on the title page or somewhere else in the text. This is of course not available for every text, whereas some texts supply multiple self-descriptions. Acceptance of terms as self-descriptions in this sense was based on their being either an established genre term (e.g. sermon, dissertation), a publication type (e.g. pamphlet, book) or being interpretable as a speech-act terms in a wider sense, e.g. answer, proposal (cf. Bach 1997 for a similar approach). The last mentioned were only accepted if they occurred on the title-page proper. The terms included in this section are listed in Appendix V.

• text structure <keywords scheme="lamStruc">, i.e. how many parts the text consists of. Possible entries here are front, body and back, of which front is further specified (dedication, address, preface).

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