I'm looking at Chaucer's Troilus in Larry Benson's edition, where you  
have a systematic use of 'incipit' and 'explicit' to mark the  
beginnings and endings of books proemia. I assume, perhaps wrongly,  
that this comes from the manuscripts.

These phrases operate syntactically, prosodically, and semantically   
at a different level from the rhyme royal that they follow or precede.  
They seem to operate exactly like 'Chapter III' or 'The End'.
On Jan 26, 2009, at 7:38 AM, Lou Burnard wrote:

> The group of experts which defined what finally became the current  
> TEI proposals for manuscript description almost came to blows about  
> whether "incipit" meant (literally) "the first few words of the item  
> being described" or "the title given to the item being described in  
> a rubric identifying it". I *think* the conclusion was definitely  
> the former (but I was hiding under the table at the time).
>
> If I'm right, then clearly there is no real need to tag the incipit  
> or explicit of a text within the text, provided  the text boundaries  
> are tagged!
>
>
> Torsten Schassan wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>> Dear Dot, and hi all,
>> sorry for the late answer but I was busy teaching TEI and manuscript
>> descriptions for the (whole) last week:
>> If we were talking about such passages within manuscript  
>> descriptions I
>> would (strongly) recommend the element <finalRubric>. I do believe  
>> that
>> an incipit (almost) *never* contains the words "incipit" nor does the
>> explicit contain "explicit" in itself but that these passages are
>> rubrics and finalRubrics (or sometimes colophons if mentioned  
>> together
>> with some person and/or date). But, in the German cataloguing  
>> tradition
>> we also use the slightly different term "Initium" for what the "real"
>> begin of the text is.
>> Now, that rubric/finalRubric are (yet) not allowed in  
>> transcriptions, we
>> either could be willing to allow it (in the future) or make clear the
>> function of the portion of text right now marked up as <trailer>?
>> Does anyone else with me feels the uneasiness of having elements like
>> rubric, incipit, explicit etc on "description level" and nothing the
>> like within the transcription? Would you use <span type="incipit"> in
>> these cases, maybe in order to point from msDesc to text? <trailer>
>> certainly looks good from its definition but using <finalRubric> here
>> and <trailer> there makes it less easy to connect description with  
>> the text?
>> Any thought and suggestions on this?
>> Best, Torsten
>>> We're encoding collections of canon law (both printed and  
>>> manuscript),
>>> and there are instances where at the very end of the collection  
>>> (after
>>> the final canon) there is an explicit: "Explicit Liber primus" for
>>> example. We're wondering if it would be reasonable to mark this  
>>> using
>>> the <closer> tag, which according to the Guidelines "groups together
>>> salutations, datelines, and similar phrases appearing as a final  
>>> group
>>> at the end of a division, especially of a letter." A collection of
>>> canons obviously isn't a letter, but the explicit seems to be acting
>>> as a closer for the collection. Thoughts?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Dot
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dot Porter (MA, MSLS)          Metadata Manager
>>> Digital Humanities Observatory (RIA), Pembroke House, 28-32 Upper
>>> Pembroke Street, Dublin 2, Ireland
>>> -- A Project of the Royal Irish Academy --
>>> Phone: +353 1 234 2444        Fax: +353 1 234 2400
>>> http://dho.ie          Email: [log in to unmask]
>> - --
>> Torsten Schassan
>> Herzog August Bibliothek, Postfach 1364, D-38299 Wolfenbuettel
>> Tel.: +49-5331-808-130, schassan {at} hab.de
>> http://www.hab.de; http://www.hab.de/forschung/projekte/weiss64.htm
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>> iD8DBQFJfbdrq4nZEP2KS4QRAuNfAJ9iRXd/HzwAqn7aEXg47Iz+vuPh8ACfRjaV
>> 6iEG+36G4wO3uKFa59CpPSM=
>> =YtyZ
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----