Features of layout and other visual effects in the source manuscripts of An Electronic Text Edition of Depositions 1560–1760 (ETED)

Terry Walker, Mid-Sweden University, Department of Humanities
Merja Kytö, Uppsala University, Department of English

Abstract

1. Introduction and aim

The aim of this article is to describe briefly how features of layout have been rendered in An Electronic Text Edition of Depositions 1560–1760 (ETED) and to investigate a range of features of layout in the deposition manuscripts that have not been represented in the edition. Depositions are written records taken down by a scribe of a deponent’s spoken testimony regarding a civil, ecclesiastical or criminal court case, which tended to be taken down in advance rather than when the case was heard in court. In ETED the deponents represent both men and women of all ages and a wide range of social ranks. The material thus offers linguists ample opportunity to study the “spoken” language of the past, as reported by deponents and recorded by the scribe using a variety of modes of speech representation (for a discussion, see Grund & Walker 2011 and forthcoming). ETED contains 905 depositions from a variety of regions in England, spanning the 200-year period 1560–1760. Fuelled by the lack of linguistic reliability and faithfulness to the original manuscripts found in most previous editions of depositions material, the motivation for ETED was to produce a more comprehensive and linguistically reliable edition. We aimed to produce an edition that was faithful to the manuscript texts insofar as this – within the scope of the project – was technically possible and meaningful for linguistic study while also enabling the edition to function as a searchable electronic corpus (see Kytö, Grund & Walker 2011a and Kytö 2011). Therefore, it was never the intention to produce a facsimile edition of the original manuscripts, and certain features of the manuscripts are not rendered in ETED. However, as such features may be of interest to scholars, we present a survey of these in this article. In the ETED project, the original intention was to include a large number of manuscript images, but for reasons of cost this was reduced to a representative sample of 34 images (see the ETED CD). Further manuscript images are now offered in the current paper, which we use to illustrate the features of layout and other visual effects in the ETED source material.

In Kytö, Grund and Walker (2011b) we showed that the church court depositions differ from criminal court depositions in terms of their organizational structure (see Grund & Walker 2011: 24–37). This is a result of differences in court procedure, and naturally affects layout features also. Essentially, in cases heard at criminal courts, the depositions were taken down before a magistrate prior to the court hearing, whereas in cases heard at church courts, depositions were taken down during various stages of the litigation process (see section 3.3 and Walker 2011: 101–146). A further difference is that a great part of the criminal court depositions are loose-leaf documents produced in various parts of a county and then sent up to the county court or Assizes, whereas church court depositions were recorded and bound in volumes at the court where the case would be heard. As these differences affect the layout of the depositions, after giving a summary of features of layout that have been rendered in ETED (section 2) and an overview of features that have not been rendered (section 3.1), we treat layout features in our church court deposition manuscripts separately from those in our criminal court deposition manuscripts in sections 3.2 and 3.3 respectively.

2. Features of layout rendered in ETED

A full account of the layout features that are rendered in ETED and which we summarise here is included in Kytö (2011: 262–275). ETED contains the edition in 5 different formats: the XML version is the reference version, while the entity-resolved XML and the TXT version are designed to be compatible with a range of search tools. The versions which most closely resemble the source manuscripts are the HTML version, the version most suitable for viewing the texts with a web browser, and the PDF version, which is designed primarily for printing purposes. In this article, we pay particular attention to the HTML version of the edition when describing the rendering of layout features.

To illustrate the layout features that are rendered in ETED, in Image 1 we show part of the HTML version of a church court deposition; the source manuscript is shown in Image 2.

As can be seen in Image 1, lineation and line spacing of the deposition is rendered to reflect that of the source manuscript. The exception to this rule in ETED pertains to two collections, Norwich 1583 and Suffolk 1645, which are not the original official deposition records: in these collections the scribe has not distinguished the different depositions by means of lineation; instead a deposition might begin on the same line as the previous testimony ended (see section 3.3). Such lineation could not be reproduced in ETED as each deposition is presented individually. Spelling, including obvious misspellings (e.g. “Cattle” for “Castle”), is essentially rendered as in the manuscript; for example, see the spelling of the surname “Doon”, “Donn” and “Donne” in Image 1 (but see Kytö 2011: 263–264 for more details). Capitalisation reflects that of the manuscript, although “[l]etter forms that have been difficult to interpret as capitals or minuscules have been rendered as capitals in proper names and at the beginning of paragraphs” (Kytö 2011: 265). The punctuation of the manuscript has also been reproduced in ETED (a few exceptions to this, largely necessary to enable ETED to function as an electronic corpus, are discussed further in section 3.1; see also Kytö 2011: 264–265). For example, the double virgule in line 21 of the manuscript (Image 2) is reproduced in the penultimate line of Image 1. Punctuation in the documents, as well as orthography and abbreviations used by the scribes is discussed in Grund (2011a: 147–180).

Abbreviations, in the form of flourishes, superscript, lines over letters, and characters now obsolete are also rendered in ETED. The variety of flourishes found in the source manuscripts are represented in ETED by a superscript wavy macron, or tilde (“^~”). The editors were able to render lines over letters and obsolete characters in ETED due to special fonts designed by Nils-Lennart Johannesson (Stockholm University). For example, the character used as an abbreviation for “pro” seen in the second word of Image 2, is represented by “P” in ETED; see also the abbreviation for the Latin suffix “rum” in line 4, which is represented in ETED by “2”.

Other features of layout rendered in ETED are cancellations, as in “so” in the penultimate line of Image 1, underlining, and additions. Letters or words written above or below the line or in the margin have been enclosed by curly brackets in ETED, so that the addition in Image 3 is rendered in ETED as “sonnes _^{made it &} brought it”.

Finally, a variety of manuscript features that cannot easily or meaningfully be rendered in ETED are instead indicated by editorial comments. Such comments, enclosed in angle brackets, are used to note, for example, gaps in the text left by the scribe to be filled in later, text that has been lost due to damage, illegible text, letters written over other letters, deponents’ marks (in place of signatures), manuscript folio or page, and changes in scribal hands. The latter two are illustrated in the first line of Image 1.

3. Features of layout not rendered in ETED

3.1 Introduction and overview

As mentioned above, in order to facilitate computer searches with software such as Xaira or other retrieval tools (e.g. WordSmith) accessible to even those less versed in computational linguistics, certain features of the manuscript layout have not been rendered at all or have been rendered in a way that differs from the manuscript layout. Thus, for example, large curly brackets and line fillers, illustrated in Image 4, have not been reproduced, while dashes and double hyphens in the source manuscripts are represented in ETED by “- -” and “-” respectively (see Kytö 2011: 264, Grund 2011a: 177–178, and Kytö, Grund & Walker 2011b: Appendix 3 for details).

Except on the few occasions where indentation is used in the source manuscripts to indicate the start of a new paragraph, the indentation of the manuscript is not annotated in ETED. Text in the margin, such as headings and signatures of officials, has been aligned at the left margin. Where two sections of text are written side by side, the section of text on the left is placed before that on the right, and aligned at the left margin. This is discussed further and illustrated in sections 3.2 and 3.3.

Marks and damage to the manuscript that do not impede the reading are not rendered in ETED. Doodling has also been omitted from ETED: for example, the name “John” that is written repeatedly at the end of the first line of text in Image 5 has no bearing on the deposition at hand (ETED: Suffolk 1645: F_2EC_Suffolk_014).

Finally, no attempt has been made to replicate or note changes in character size or embellished characters such as that shown in Image 6. Such features are discussed and illustrated in 3.2 and 3.3.

We will show that there are differences and similarities between the church court and the criminal court depositions in terms of appearance. Mak (2011: 16) notes that “[s]cholarly readers often needed to refer to multiple texts at once, and therefore demanded an organizational apparatus in support of their particular reading activities”: depositions, while not ‘scholarly’, would also be read together with other related documents, and thus it is to be expected that these documents would display certain layout features and other visual effects in common, to facilitate locating the various components of the text on the page as well as cross-referencing. One such feature, for example, is the use of space on the manuscript page: “[b]lank space is crucial to the activity of reading, and especially silent reading, because it enhances the legibility and comprehensibility of the page” (Mak 2011: 17). We now turn to such features in church court depositions (3.2) before examining those in criminal court depositions (3.3).

3.2 Layout features in church court depositions

In ETED, the depositions relating to church court cases range from 1562 to 1715 (see Table 1). Church courts dealt with cases concerning issues such as the contestation of wills, broken marriage contracts, defamation and misconduct by the clergy (Walker 2011: 130–137). As mentioned in section 1, unlike criminal court depositions, which were created across the county or region and sent to the relevant court, the collections of church court manuscripts draw on the documents copied down in the locality of the court in question.

As a result, these manuscripts have mostly been preserved in bound books or bundles, and fewer scribes were involved in the recording of these church court deposition collections than is generally the case for the criminal court records (see Table 5.1 in Grund 2011a: 149). It has been suggested that scribes in the church courts may have had access to model documents or other instructions in writing that would have guided them in their work (for discussion, see Grund & Walker 2011: 31 and Grund 2011a: 151–156). This might partly account for the not negligible degree of layout features and patterns that the collections have in common.

The main aim of the layout practices seems to have been to highlight the different pieces of information as clearly as possible on the manuscript folio, mainly by making choices regarding their position on the page. An important part of this strategy was the use made of empty space on the page regarding the left margin, space lines and indentation. Some use was also made of embellished letters to highlight the names of the deponents and other parties in the case. The idea was clearly to help those browsing through a deposition book to spot the beginning of new cases or depositions, and to locate the relevant pieces of information searched for. Another visual effect can be to mark off separate points within the same article (i.e. the deponent’s response to a particular question or article of libel) by adding extra space on the line before the next point follows; such points are often introduced by phrases such as “And further he saith” (see 3.3 for a more detailed discussion). As mentioned in 3.1, some of this visual and non-linearly organized information on the folio was lost when the manuscript text was converted into digital form applicable for computerized searches. In the following, we will illustrate the more conspicuous features that the scribes used for layout effects in the church court documents that are not in our transcriptions in ETED (or are conveyed in another way: see 3.1). We will first present a number of prototypical layout solutions and then structure our presentation to follow the main organizational components of church court depositions. To conclude this section, we will comment on the layout practices and how they change in the four London collections that cover the 200 years included in ETED.

The main components of church court depositions comprise the case heading, information on the deponent, the testimony of the deponent, the interrogatories where the deponent answers additional questions, and the deponent’s mark or signature; there may also be notes on the deposition having been repeated before an official (for discussion, see Grund & Walker 2011: 31–37). Apart from the testimony and mostly also the deponent information, the components are optional and therefore not always present in each deposition. There is a good deal of variation in the order of the components on the manuscript folio across the collections although there can be a certain consistency within one and the same collection.

We first examine the source manuscript for ETED: London 1590–1593: F_1LD_London_010 from 1592 (see Image 7), which displays many of the layout features found in church court depositions.

As can be seen in the image, the deposition beginning on this manuscript page is preceded by the end of another, separated by spacing. The case heading, which identifies the parties involved (“Thome Baines con^~ margeriam ffidgett”) and gives the date of the hearing (“24 April^~ Ter^~ Pasche^~ 1592”) is block-indented to the right and separated from the ensuing deposition information by a space line for clarity. The deposition information is aligned to follow the testimony proper and is, again, separated from that by a space line. In the left margin, next to the case heading, we find the eye-catching “X contra Y” specification (“Baines con ffydgett /”) and under it the information about the testimony having been repeated in the presence of the public notary a fortnight later, on 5 May (“quinto maij 1592”). Further down in the margin, next to the testimony paragraph, there is the note “2 testis./”, specifying that two witnesses will be heard. This layout articulates the relevant components of the text in an efficient way. Further highlighting has been done by using engrossing letter forms to mark off the “X contra Y” note (Dawson & Kennedy-Skipton 1966: 78–79; Petti 1977: 17; for a discussion of the scribal hands in the ETED documents, see Grund 2011a: 156–158). Also, an embellished large “S” marks off the beginning of the case heading. Carroll et al. (forthcoming) mention how in late medieval books the use of large initials was a typical method of marking text divisions: “[c]onventional usage was systematic: the more striking the initial, the more significant the textual division”. Although the embellished initials are by no means as striking as in late medieval books, there are thus traces of this convention found in the depositions. Compared with the manuscript image, the corresponding transcription in ETED does not attempt to convey the position of the information in the margins or indicate that certain letter forms are larger or embellished. It only preserves the two space lines and uses further space lines to separate the components from each other. The components are presented in the same order across the collection, in the linear format that facilitates computerized searches:

The “X contra Y” note is not always present, as not all church court cases were between two conflicting parties (see Walker 2011: 130). Instead of the “X contra Y” note indexing the beginning of a new deposition on the folio, the date can be placed as uppermost to the left, as shown in Image 8.

While this placement of the date is not a rare practice in church documents, the effect caused by the scribe forcefully using step-wise indentation and space lines to let the opening paragraphs cascade on the folio is less common. Note also the visual indexing of the articles in the testimony proper introduced by “To”, with the repetition of the eye-catching “T”; an even clearer example of this is found in Image 16. According to Grund (2011b: 196–197), the use of Latin to mark off the beginning of articles may have served as a locating device for court officials consulting the records. That layout effects could also be used in this context for enhanced signposting effects is demonstrated by the outdenting of the word “Ad” in Image 9. In other respects this document looks quite different from Image 8, with the case heading pulled in the left margin at the top of the folio, the deponent information block-indented to the right, running partly parallel with the case heading, and the two components linked with a large curly bracket (see also section 3.1).

These examples give an idea of the distance between the visual impression made by the layout of church court manuscripts and the linear way of rendering the text in ETED. For a more systematic survey, we now turn to the different components in depositions drawn from the church court manuscripts. Starting with the case heading, it is mostly block-indented to the right, as shown in Image 7. In Winchester 1600–1602, it is the date that is mostly placed in the left margin to mark off a new case, while the case heading appears block-indented to the left, as illustrated in Image 10.

In the deponent information component, we learn about the deponent’s (or deponents’) name(s), and often about his/her (or their) social background (age, profession or marital status, current and previous place of residence, place of birth) and relationship to the litigants (for details, see Grund & Walker 2011: 31–33, 37). As with the case heading, scribes use different ways to signal the beginning of this important part of the document. The manuscript source for London 1590–1593: F_1LD_London_010 (see Image 7) shows a prototypical layout where the deposition information is presented in a paragraph separated by empty lines from the preceding block-indented case heading and the ensuing testimony proper; the left margin of the paragraph is aligned to follow that of the testimony proper. In Durham 1567–1574, space lines are also made efficient use of on folios containing depositions which start with the deponent information (the case heading appears on one of the preceding folios). For instance, on f. 94, we find two depositions with no layout devices other than space lines used for visual clues. In instances such as this, the version given in ETED renders the layout of the original rather more accurately than is the case when scribes have used other methods for highlighting the components. However, the sense of the layout of the full folio is perhaps lost as the two depositions are separated by the coding information in the ETED file versions.

A further way of highlighting the beginning of the deposition information is to pull the first line of the deponent information to the left margin. In the source manuscript for Winchester 1566–1577: F_1SD_Winchester_031 (see Image 12), there is no space line under the case heading but the first line of the deponent information is pulled to the left margin and larger, embellished letters are used to mark off the deponent’s first name; the ensuing lines have been aligned to follow the left margin of the testimony proper.

The same principle appears in the source manuscript for Winchester 1600–1602: F_2SD_Winchester_018 (see Image 10), whose scribe, however, also uses empty lines to separate the components. Apart from the space lines, these visual clues do not appear in the ETED transcription. Moreover, the name of the presiding official, “Thomas Ridley”, marked in the left margin in the manuscript, is given on a line of its own in the transcription, in between the deponent information and the deponent’s testimony.

As appears in many of the example folios referred to above, the testimony proper is mostly separated from the deponent information by a space line. However, there are exceptions to this practice. The testimony can continue directly from where the deponent information ends, with no visual highlighting, as in Image 13. Here the deposition information is given in Latin and only the transition into English (“… dicit that …”) marks off the beginning of the testimony proper.

The interrogatories that may follow the testimony are mostly introduced by a subheading placed in the middle of the line, as in Image 14; the words in this particular case are “Idem ad interrogat^~” (Oxford 1609–1615: F_2SD_Oxford_004). This catches one’s eye on the manuscript folio but is less evident in the rendering given in ETED, where all headings and subheadings are aligned to follow the main text left margin.

As mentioned above, the signposting function of the material placed in the left margin of the manuscript folio tends to get lost in the ETED transcriptions. In fact, marginalia can in extremely rare cases be assigned an erroneous folio number in the transcription, as happens in London 1627–1628: F_2LD_London_010: the “Repetit” note is on f. 44Av of the manuscript (see Image 15) but in the ETED transcription the note is instead aligned at the left margin (see 3.1), with the result that it is placed after the deponent information, on folio “<f. 44Br>”.

The end of a deposition can sometimes overlap visually with the beginning of a new one on the manuscript folio. This is the case with the source manuscript for Durham 1628–1638: F_2ND_Durham_004 and F_2ND_Durham_005 (Image 16). Here the information that the first deposition was repeated in the presence of the court officials is recorded in the left margin after the testimony proper, and the deponent information of the ensuing deposition runs parallel to it, block-indented to the right. Hand changes and the resulting crammed layout point to the possibility that the information about the repetition of the former deposition was added after the latter had already been entered on the folio. This information is difficult to deduce on the basis of the transcription in ETED.

The church court manuscripts used for ETED also contain instances of text that have been omitted in the transcriptions, making the two sources differ. For instance, the original folio numbering seen in Image 11 has not been included in the ETED transcription per se, but instead given as an editorial comment in Durham 1567–1574: F_1ND_Durham_015–016. Similarly, the document numbering in the Chester 1562–1566 collection, illustrated in Image 17, has been omitted in ETED.

Also, in the top left-hand margin of Image 14 one finds the words “Sol: pro cop:” which are omitted in the ETED transcription (Oxford 1609–1615: F_2SD_Oxford_004). The source manuscripts for this collection include only a handful of such instances. Another instance where we find information on the manuscript folio which has not been transferred to ETED is shown in Images 18a–b, where the deponent’s mark is found next to the deponent information and again at the end of the deposition next to the signature. Only the latter of the two marks is included in the ETED transcription (London 1681–1682: F_3LD_London_002).

We now turn to the four London collections to see what evidence they might give of changes in layout practices found in the documents produced in one and the same locality. A prototypical folio from the London 1590–1593 collection (London 1590–1593: F_1LD_London_010) has been shown in Image 7. The London 1627–1628 collection follows the practices of its predecessor in many respects, and it is only the follow-up London 1681–1682 collection that displays notable changes to previous practices. Among these are that the date has been placed at the top of the document, above the case heading, that when the “X contra Y” note occurs, it has been placed to the left though not fully in the margin, and that the information on the deposition having been repeated has been placed at the end of the document; for illustration see Image 19.

The layout practices in some documents in the London 1714–1715 collection follow those of the previous collection but others display another pattern in some respects, with the use of the large curly bracket to link the case heading and the deponent information (similar to that found in Image 9).

In sum, our survey of church court documents in section 3.2 illustrates the various ways in which scribes profited from layout features to index the information on the pages of deposition books: making use of layout features was an efficient way of organizing the information and highlighting the different components in depositions. We have also drawn attention to instances where transferring the manuscript text into basic searchable electronic form made it necessary either to omit layout features or to annotate them in a way required by the linear format of the running text. The repertoire of layout features which we have commented on comprise the empty space in the left margin area of the page, space lines, alignment, and different types of indentation. We have also made mention of features concerning handwriting, such as the use of font changes and large and/or embellished letters. Our survey has shown that although there is a great deal of variation in the visual effects that the scribes opted for, most documents exhibit an effort on the scribes’ part to distinguish the different components of the depositions and to highlight vital pieces of information such as the date of the document, and the names of the witnesses, the officials and the parties involved in the case. Finally, we have shown that the four London collections that span the period covered by ETED display stability and continuity in the scribes’ use of layout features but also give evidence of changes and further variation introduced towards the end of the period.

3.3 Layout features in criminal court depositions

In ETED, there are depositions relating to criminal court cases ranging from 1560 to 1760. The cases concern a range of crimes from vagrancy and petty theft to murder and treason which, depending on the severity of the crime, were heard at the borough court, quarter sessions and assizes, i.e. at the city, country and regional level (see Table 2). One collection (Norwich 1560–1566) also includes a number of depositions relating to civil cases. Hence it is not surprising to find there are a variety of layouts and other visual effects found in this material.

Image 20 reflects perhaps the most common layout found in the criminal court depositions material. The place (“West^~ {Rid} Com: Ebor /”) is noted in the top left-hand margin. The deposition heading is indented, and there is a space between the heading and the deponent’s testimony. (Note that “at present” in the margin of the last line of the testimony is an emendation, and thus does not reflect typical layout of a criminal court deposition). Beneath the testimony on the left is the formula “Capt^~ coram {nob^~}” etc. (‘Taken before us’), which begins in the margin, and the signatures of the magistrates. On the right is the signature of the deponent. As explained in 3.1, two such sections of text written side by side in the manuscript are aligned at the left margin in ETED, with one section above the other. Not found in this typical manuscript layout is a recognizance, which can be found appended to a number of the criminal court depositions (see Image 32), but was usually recorded in a separate document (see Grund & Walker 2011: 29 for details)

We can compare the typical manuscript layout with that of the example text (Image 21) included in one of several seventeenth-century manuals for Justices of the Peace (Bond 1696: 378), the magistrates responsible for taking depositions in criminal cases (although the identity of who actually wrote down the depositions is difficult to determine, as discussed in Grund 2011a: 151–156).

The focus of these manuals is on the content and structure rather than the layout as such (see also Grund & Walker 2011: 27; 29–30); however, the positioning of the place beside the deposition heading, and the spacing between heading and testimony, tallies with the manuscript layout. Not surprisingly in manuscripts, block capitals are not found, but the use of a larger, often embellished initial letter to begin the deposition heading and/or the testimony is not unusual, as illustrated in the detail from another deposition from Yorkshire (Image 22): as pointed out in 3.1, such larger and/or embellished letters are not distinguished in ETED. The signature or mark of the deponent in the manuscript in Image 20 is replaced by that of the presiding judge in Bond 1696.

In the source manuscripts for the criminal court depositions in ETED, we do find collections (Somerset 1635–1637 and Northern 1646–1649) where the presiding official signs on the right-hand side and there is no deponent signature/mark (e.g. Image 29). However, there is a strong tendency for the deponent’s signature or mark to be on the right and the name of the presiding judge on the left when both are given (with one section of text sometimes placed slightly higher than the other), as in our deposition collections Somerset 1682–1688, Somerset 1706–1716, Norwich 1700–1754 and Northern 1724–1758. In rare cases where there is insufficient space for the names of the presiding judges below the testimony, these can be written alongside the testimony, in the margin (as in Image 23).

It is not uncommon that only the deponent’s signature or mark is given, again usually on the right-hand side (Norwich 1560–1566; Colchester 1647–1649; Colchester 1650–1675). Some collections show some variety: Lancaster 1696–1698 and Lancaster 1700–1760 tend to have the typical layout for signatures but occasionally have only deponent signatures; the same can be said of Northern 1654–1699, but this collection also has depositions signed only by the judge(s), and the positioning varies; Henley 1751 tends to have just deponent signatures or nothing; Chelmsford 1646–1649 and Chelmsford 1652–1657 vary with regard to which signatures are included, and the positioning of these. Two collections, Norwich 1583 and Suffolk 1645 (discussed later in this section), lack signatures altogether (Grund & Walker 2011: 28).

An obvious factor affecting layout, including the placement of signatures, is whether the deposition was written on a loose leaf, whether it was written together with other depositions pertaining to the same case, or whether it was bound in a book. The majority of the criminal court depositions in ETED are loose, or have been bound at a later date: for example, the manuscript source for Somerset 1635–1637 is now a bound volume, but holes to the upper left of recto pages and to the upper right of verso pages clearly indicate where related depositions were previously bound with string, and thus separated from the other unrelated depositions or deposition cases. This reflects the fact that criminal court depositions, as mentioned in section 1 and 3.2, were usually taken down in a range of localities within a county or region and then sent to the appropriate court, unlike our church court records. Clearly the much greater variety of hands (see Grund 2011a: 149–150) results in a greater variety of layout. As a result, it is not possible to give a thorough survey here, but the following discussion illustrates some ways in which depositions that were written on loose leaves in the various criminal court collections – including depositions pertaining to one case that are written on one leaf, or folded or tied together – may differ from the typical layout discussed at the beginning of this section. Given that there is less variation in the depositions written in bound volumes, as these tend to contain fewer hands, we then consider these in more detail.

There are a number of variations found in the depositions on loose leaves. We have already seen how there can be a great variety in the placing and inclusion of signatures: on a leaf including five related depositions in Chelmsford 1646–1649 the justice’s name (but not the deponent’s) is given sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right, and sometimes twice, below each of the five depositions, which perhaps causes the omission of the space between the third deposition heading and the testimony, as this deposition is squeezed onto the bottom of the recto page. Omitting a space under the heading is not always obviously motivated by a shortage of space, but, with the exception perhaps of Norwich 1700–1754, there is a clear preference for a space between heading and testimony throughout our material, which is reflected in the ETED transcriptions. In some few cases, the source manuscript shows text continuing at an unusual angle, possibly in an attempt to use all available space on a sheet of paper, which cannot be rendered in the same way electronically. In Image 24, the scribe, having filled the right half of the sheet, then continues the text on the left side of the sheet, but vertical to the writing on the right half (the remainder of the left half of the page is not shown in the image). In ETED, it has been necessary to continue the text as horizontal text.

The source manuscripts for Henley 1751, a collection pertaining to a high profile murder case, have a number of interesting layout features. As the documents are not bound, a range of methods are adopted for keeping the pages in order, such as some page numbering or the use of catchwords: these are not reproduced in ETED (for the solution adopted in ETED for this collection, see Kytö 2011: 274). In this collection, especially in depositions whose layout deviates from the model described at the beginning of this section, larger letters in the initial word or words of the deposition are used; in depositions which consist of just one paragraph, this is a useful device to highlight the deponent’s name; a long dash separates the heading from the testimony (see Image 25).

Other means of highlighting is found in the loose leaf manuscripts. The addition of a line preceding the testimony proper, outdented into the left margin, in large embellished letters, such as “Sworne and Exaied.” (ETED: Somerset 1682–1688: F_3WC_Somerset_024) and “Who upon oath saith” (ETED: Northern 1654–1699: F_3NC_Northern_028) is not very common, and found primarily in Somerset 1682–1688. By contrast, the use of large, often embellished letters (or words) to introduce both deposition heading and/or testimony is not infrequent, but we also find these letters or whole words outdented into the left margin for further emphasis. The addition of flourishes on letters is not unusual in the manuscript source material but Somerset 1682–1688 probably exhibits the most excessive (see Images 6 and 26). As Grund (2011a: 157) notes, “the hands are far from the display or engrossing versions used by some professional scribes in the period” because the depositions were utilitarian records not display documents; hence embellishment in these records would tend to be restricted to highlighting purposes. On occasion the deponent’s name is outdented, with the heading and the testimony in the same paragraph (see Image 26). While the text is of course present in ETED, the outdenting and larger or embellished letters are not replicated, as mentioned in 3.1. Note that in Image 26, another fairly uncommon layout feature is found, namely that the date is given as a separate heading (found primarily in Norwich 1700–1754).

Some, but not many, loose leaf depositions have deposition headings that are not indented, which means that the ETED transcription resembles the original manuscript layout in this respect. Indentation tends to be encouraged by the fact that space is needed for the place to be noted.

Case headings similar to those found in church court collections (see 3.2) are relevant to criminal court depositions also when a group of depositions is written on a loose leaf and/or folded/tied together (see also Grund & Walker 2011: 26). When the case heading is followed by the first deposition (see Image 27, in which the string binding has been preserved), it is included in ETED with the first deposition text. When the depositions are folded, a case heading is written on an outer (verso) fold (see Image 28), which is then added at the end of the last deposition when the deposition text is on the same verso.

A part of the manuscript that is not found in ETED is text on the outer fold of a page (unless that page includes part of a deposition text): such text tends to be a short title for filing/indexing purposes rather than the case heading (as in Image 29); it is also often found in folded documents containing just one deposition.

In both Image 27 and Image 29, after the case heading, the deposition heading and the testimony is written as one paragraph; elsewhere in our material, we find brief headings “James Bayley Sworn” (ETED: Northern 1724–1758: F_4NC_Northern_016), or full headings (see e.g. Image 24). It is not merely with regard to case headings that the layout of a suite of depositions relating to the same case may differ from single depositions: identifying the location is only required at the start of the suite and the signature of the justice or coroner is only required at the end (i.e. there is no need to include these components in every deposition). Nevertheless, as shown in Image 29, the signature of the judge or coroner may be added after each deposition.

In ETED, entire deposition collections that are bound in a book are those pertaining to cases both originating from and heard in the same locality, namely, at Norwich 1560–1566 and at Colchester 1647–1649 and 1650–1675. This results in much more consistency in layout due to the fact that there is only one scribe in each of the first two collections, and only two in the collection that spans a longer period of time, Colchester 1650–1675 (see Grund 2011a: 148–149). Except for the points we will now discuss, these documents follow the typical layout described at the beginning of this section. Naturally, there is no need to note the locality where the depositions were taken and the cases heard in these collections, so this component is not found. The year, or month and year, occasionally noted in the source manuscripts for Norwich 1560–1566 (see Image 30) is not included in ETED as this appears to be non-contemporaneous text, perhaps added later by archivists.

In one deposition from Colchester 1647–1649 (F_2EC_Colchester_014), the date is written above the deposition heading; this was possibly added to clarify the phrase “the day & yeere abouesaid” in the deposition heading instead of having the reader search previous pages for the date. Also the space typically found between the deposition heading and the testimony in most deposition collections is not very marked in a few depositions from Colchester 1647–1649 and Colchester 1650–1675. This space is missing entirely in two depositions (Norwich 1560–1566: F_1EC_NorwichA_032 and Colchester 1650–1675: F_3EC_Colchester_024).

Two depositions in the Norwich collection begin “M^d that” followed by the testimony of the deponent(s). In other words, there is no heading (one of the depositions also lacks a signature): this is presumably redundant because those giving evidence are the Mayor and aldermen themselves. As with the loose leaf depositions discussed earlier in this section, in the bound collections there are a few examples of depositions consisting of one short paragraph (Norwich 1560–1566: F_1EC_NorwichA_027 and F_1EC_NorwichA_028; Colchester 1650–1675: F_3EC_Colchester_006 and F_3EC_Colchester_007); all but one of these lack a signature or mark. In the case of the two Norwich depositions, in the manuscript it is actually rather difficult to see that these are two separate depositions (see the second half of the manuscript page in Image 31): together they resemble the typical layout of a single deposition, with the first deposition resembling an indented heading, and the second deposition resembling the non-indented testimony, separated only by one blank line. Three deposition headings are not indented in Colchester 1650–1675 (F_3EC_Colchester_020, 022 and 023): this results in less visual clarity, as at a glance the deposition heading is not easily distinguished.

In Image 32 (from the source manuscript for Colchester 1650–1675: F_3EC_Colchester_029), a recognizance placed at the end of the deposition beneath the signature is illustrated: these are uncommon in our material generally, but not infrequent in the material from Colchester. The recognizance is reproduced in ETED, but is aligned with the left margin and separated from the signature by an empty line.

Unlike in church court depositions (see 3.2), the fact that the three criminal court deposition collections (Norwich 1560–1566, Colchester 1647–1649 and 1650–1675) are bound does not appear to affect the layout of the individual documents to any great extent in terms of marking related depositions or cases, or adding cross references with other documents. There are in-text cross references, such as “Sworne and examined the daye and yeare Aboue written” (ETED: Norwich 1560–1566: F_1EC_NorwichA_003) and “and w^ch the abouenamed Anthony Goodwin hath confessed” (ETED: Colchester 1650–1675: F_3EC_Colchester_002), but signposting such as that described in 3.2 is probably not necessary: case headings, for example, are not found (with the notable exception of Colchester 1650–1675: F_3EC_Colchester_004). This probably reflects the different procedures in the two types of court. As mentioned in section 1, church court procedure involved the taking of depositions at various stages of the legal process, and as we have seen in section 3.2, the depositions contain the witnesses’ responses to lists of questions (articles or interrogatories). Moreover, there might be depositions taken in one suit and others taken in a counter-suit (see Walker 2011: 137–143). All these factors encouraged the use in church court depositions of cross-referencing and sign-posting to other documents and cases. Such cross-referencing or sign-posting was simply of less relevance in criminal court depositions, which were taken down at one, initial stage of the legal process and did not comprise responses to written interrogatories (see Walker 2011: 115–122).

The fact that the Norwich and Colchester deposition collections are bound in a volume does, however, affect the use of signatures: as the records were all taken centrally before the Mayor and aldermen (as also stated in many deposition headings) there is perhaps no need to include the magistrates’ signatures; instead only the signature or mark of the deponent is required and the placing is thus freer (occurring in the margin, or on the left, centred or on the right below the testimony: see Image 30).

Image 30 also shows another interesting layout feature: in the source manuscripts for Norwich 1560–1566, the testimony may be divided into paragraphs separated by an empty line, this feature being also reproduced in ETED. Alternatively, as here (line 22), a textual division may be indicated by a virgule (or, rarely, a period), extra spacing, and the word “And”, which introduces the next part of the testimony, perhaps further emphasized by a slightly larger capital letter (see also Grund 2011a: 175–176; Meurman-Solin 2007a, 2007b, 2011, 2012). Note that a similar use of spacing before the word “And” in “And farther saith not” is found in the penultimate line of Image 21, the printed examination in Bond (1696: 378), and within the deponent’s response to a particular question, or article, in church court depositions (see the introductory part of section 3.2). Clearly this is a very economical, yet visual way to distinguish between different parts of the discourse, and also occurs elsewhere in the Norwich collection, often with “And” or “Then” following the space. In ETED, line 22 of the manuscript in Image 30 is rendered “thynke good / And he sayde ffurther be content” (ETED: Norwich 1560–1566: F_1EC_NorwichA_001). Hence the visual effect in such cases is lost, as one has to read the ETED text rather than glance at the layout to discover the division between the two parts of the testimony. Elsewhere, an enlarged initial capital is often used at the beginning of a new paragraph after an empty line in the manuscripts; the letter size is not reproduced in ETED, but the empty line in the edition indicates the division. While variation in spacing and letter size can be observed in the manuscripts, it is problematic to create a taxonomy and annotation practices to provide this information in an edition, and it was beyond the scope of the ETED project to attempt this. Hence unless a space has clearly been left for the later addition of a name (as occurs elsewhere in the Norwich collection), only one character space between words is used in ETED.

There are two exceptional collections, Suffolk 1645 and Norwich 1583, that are also bound, in which the layout is not that of the majority of depositions in ETED. Suffolk 1645 relates to the proceedings of the special Assize at Bury during the Civil War. The origin and purpose of these apparently unofficial Bury records is uncertain; both layout and content are discussed in some detail elsewhere (see Walker 2011: 123–127; Walker 2012). Norwich 1583 pertains to a case of manslaughter: the original documents, now lost, were sent to the Court of Queen’s Bench where they were copied into the appropriate court roll (The National Archives, London. KB29/219 mbs, f. 150r–152r). The old-fashioned court hand is discussed in Grund (2011a: 158), but several layout features are worthy of mention here. The records of the Norwich 1583 case begin on f. 150r of the roll. A gap equivalent to three or four lines of text has been left between this and the previous case on the page. The records begin with “Angl^~ ss” written in the margin, thereafter the text starts on the same line, with the first word “Memorand^~” enlarged. Divisions in the text are not indicated by spacing as in the majority of depositions in ETED, but by a paraph (see e.g. Carroll et al. forthcoming). In this manuscript it resembles the characters Qd (see Image 33).

This paraph is used between the case heading and the date, the date and the deposition heading, and the deposition heading and the testimony. It is used not only between each deposition but between different parts of a deponent’s testimony, and to separate notes from the rest of the text. Furthermore the words following the paraph are enlarged, as illustrated in Image 34.

The paraph, together with the enlarged lettering, is intended to highlight where different parts of the text begin. Using this method, different parts of a case can be distinguished very economically, and empty lines reserved for highlighting divisions between cases. As well as the marginal “Angl^~ ss” mentioned above, interesting layout features for indexing purposes are the large folio numbers in Latin numerals at the bottom, and the large Latin text identifying the term of the legal year on the top of each recto page (see Images 34 and 35 respectively).

Our survey of layout features and other visual effects in criminal court depositions has illustrated that there was a typical layout, which was probably influenced by contemporaneous manuals to some extent. However, there were deviations to this layout, especially with regard to the use and placement of signatures and the position of the deposition heading in relation to the testimony. Aligning the transcription on the left-hand margin in ETED does result in some loss as regards the visual representation of the manuscript, as does the fact that ETED has normalised letter size and does not reproduce embellished letters, but in some cases the presentation in ETED is visually clearer than that of the manuscript. A factor influencing manuscript layout was whether the depositions were loose leaf, folded or attached to other related depositions, or bound in a volume; the latter showed less variation as a result of the fewer hands involved in the production of a bound volume in one and the same locality. A large number of scribal hands are found in the source manuscripts for ETED, as most depositions were taken down locally and then sent to a county or regional court: this naturally encourages variation in the layout and other visual effects used. A range of techniques for highlighting parts of the texts are attested in the documents, such as the use of larger letters, flourishes, and outdenting. One part of the text may be set off from another by line spacing, extra spacing on the line followed by a large capital letter, or a paraph, for example. In one court roll, an indexing function is served by means of large Latin page numbering. Shortage of space on loose leaf documents can also affect the appearance of the text on the manuscript page.

4. Summary and outlook

At the same time as our survey of church and criminal depositions in ETED revealed patterns of layout and other visual features shared by many scribes, it also pointed to variation in the material and to deviations from the main solutions. An important factor in the choices made by the scribes was whether the manuscripts were produced locally and bound in a volume, as tended to be the case with church court documents and some criminal court collections, or – as was the case with the main part of criminal court depositions – whether the documents were produced in different localities and appeared as single depositions in loose leaf form, or as related depositions on a loose leaf and/or folded or tied together. The former tended to involve the participation of fewer scribes and show less variation than the latter.

As explained in section 1, the primary aim of ETED was to render the manuscript text as faithfully as possible within the restrictions set by modern typography, and with some use made of computerized images to relay normalized versions of certain obsolete characters for the HTML/PDF formats (see Kytö 2011: 266–267, Table 8.5). The ETED transcriptions are particularly suited for research based on lexical items or constructions that can be retrieved in computerized searches. As spelling variation is an inherent feature of Early Modern English, searches will need to be based on the word lists displaying the spelling variants in the ETED material (available on the ETED CD). Similarly, transcriptions have involved decisions on the transcribers’ part regarding palaeographical details such as the interpretation of ‘e’ and ‘o’ letters in idiosyncratic hands. Any attempts to carry out in-depth analyses of features in word divisions or handwriting should, accordingly, be based on the study of these features in the manuscripts. This also pertains to the study of layout features. The ETED transcriptions can only relay, at best, an echo of the manuscript reality regarding the visual effects produced by the scribes, and certain aspects are not reflected in ETED at all. This is the case, for instance, with the use of extra mid-line spacing to precede the word “And”, apparently used in order to articulate divisions within the testimony (cf. the discussion of visual prosody in Meurman-Solin 2007a, 2007b, 2011, 2012 and this volume).

Our analysis of layout and other visual features in the manuscripts underlying ETED transcriptions has been an intriguing process, making us aware of the benefits that coding the text for at least some of the layout features would bring about. As it is, it would be difficult to come up with precise quantitative results about the use which the scribes made of the layout features that we have reported on in this article. Yet it would be of interest to see whether certain layout patterns gained ground over the period, and if so, in what proportions and in which type of depositions. This would be particularly interesting as regards the repertoire of devices used to distinguish the various organizational components of depositions. It would also be of interest to quantify the use of text-structuring devices (such as mid-line spacing) in order to analyse their function, combined with marking off palaeographical details (such as embellished capital letters). Coding projects along these lines can be recommended for the future enhancement of the ETED files. Considering that depositions represent utilitarian writing, it may be less useful to start coding details such as the height of space lines in the manuscripts. Having this information coded in the transcriptions files might help add to our knowledge about scribal idiosyncrasies but, as differences in the space line height in utilitarian writing may be just a question of practical necessity from the scribes’ point of view, and as the depositions included in ETED are the work of a large number of scribes, it may be difficult to come up with meaningful generalisations, on the whole.

Despite the time it takes to code information on layout and other visual effects in the electronic renderings of manuscript text, it would be worth the effort: paying attention to such features would help end-users to retrieve information about properties of the texts at a more in-depth level than is the case when the only way of finding out about visual effects is to study the original manuscripts or, where deemed sufficient, high-quality facsimile reproductions of them.

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