This document discusses how the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) approach can help rethink historical research in the digital age. It argues that TEI allows historians to take advantage of digital technologies while maintaining research as the focus. TEI enables closer study of sources by requiring precision in encoding their nature and meaning. It also facilitates transitioning sources from manuscripts to digital formats while preserving their integrity through semantic encoding and segmentation. The document provides examples of how TEI can enable new types of historical analysis by linking names to contexts and establishing critical apparatuses for variant source texts.