3. The Wonders of TEI
• Because the TEI Guidelines seek to provide a
framework for encoding (in theory) any genre
of text from any period in any language, the
full TEI tag set is extremely rich, consisting of
nearly 500 elements (by comparison, DocBook
has around 400, XHTML 1.0 around 90). In
practice, most TEI users routinely use a much
smaller subset of the full language.
• TEI Guidelines
5. The Problem of Person, Place and Thing
Herkneth to me, gode men -
Wives, maydnes, and alle men -
Of a tale that ich you wile telle,
Wo so it wile here and therto dwelle.
The tale is of Havelok imaked:
Whil he was litel, he yede ful naked.
Havelok was a ful god gome -
He was ful god in everi trome;
He was the wicteste man at nede
That thurte riden on ani stede.
That ye mowen now yhere,
And the tale you mowen ylere,
At the biginnig of ure tale,
Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale;
And wile drinken, her I spelle,
That Crist us shilde alle fro helle.
Krist late us hevere so for to do
That we moten comen Him to;
And, witthat it mote ben so,
Benedicamus Domino!
6. Defining Person and Place
Person Place
• narrator •metaphysical places, i.e. Hell,
• groups of people heaven, etc.
• the general ‘us’ •there, here, are also marked as
• religious figures (Christ, etc) places
• reflexive and possessive pronouns not •rooms in a house (line 157 “hall”)
marked marked as <place> and <thing>
• all other pronouns marked with <ref> •if we can find it on a medieval map
that lead back to the person’s first it’s a place
mention
• occupations are defined as ‘people,’ not
things
• line 36: “holy kirke” marked as person
because it refers to the body of Christ
• animals capable of speech are <person>;
otherwise they’re <thing>
That still leaves thing…
11. The first 20 lines again
<div n="1"> <l n="1">Herkneth to <ref target="the narrator">me</ref>, gode <thing>men</thing> -</l>
<l n="2"><thing>Wives</thing>, <thing>maydnes</thing>, and <thing>alle men</thing> -</l>
<l n="3">Of a <thing>tale</thing> that <ref target="the narrator">ich</ref> <ref target="the audience">you</ref> wile
telle,</l>
<l n="4">Wo so it wile <place>here</place> and <place>therto</place> dwelle.</l>
<l n="5">The <thing>tale</thing> is of <person>Havelok</person> imaked:</l>
<l n="6">Whil <ref target="Havelok">he</ref> was litel,<ref target="Havelok"> he</ref> yede ful naked.</l>
<l n="7"><person>Havelok</person> was a ful god <thing><person>gome</person></thing> - </l>
<l n="8"><ref target= "Havelok">He</ref> was ful god in everi <thing>trome</thing>;</l>
<l n="9"><ref target= "Havelok">He</ref> was the wicteste man at nede</l>
<l n="10">That thurte riden on ani <thing>stede</thing>.</l>
<l n="11">That <ref target="the audience">ye</ref> mowen now yhere,</l>
<l n="12">And the <thing>tale</thing> <person>you</person> mowen ylere,</l>
<l n="13">At the biginnig of ure <thing>tale</thing>,</l>
<l n="14">Fil <ref target="the narrator">me</ref> a <thing>cuppe</thing> of ful god <thing>ale</thing>;</l>
<l n="15">And wile drinken, her<ref target="the narrator"> I</ref> spelle,</l>
<l n="16">That <person><thing>Crist</thing></person> <person>us</person> shilde alle fro <place>helle</place>.</l> <l
n="17"><person><thing>Krist</thing></person> late <person>us</person> hevere so for to do</l>
<l n="18">That we moten comen <ref target="Christ"><thing>Him</thing></ref> to;</l>
<l n="19">And, witthat it mote ben so,</l>
<l n="20">Benedicamus <person><thing>Domino</thing></person>!</l>