Case Study: Ethiopian Psalter of the Virgin

Case Study: Ethiopian Psalter of the Virgin Daria Elagina 2019-07-26 Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz Austria Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz Austria GAMS - Geisteswissenschaftliches Asset Management System Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 2019 Graz o:tei2019.169

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en literary work manuscript authorship 2019-07-29T14:57:34Z Daria Elagina

The project Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea (Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens: eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung) is a long-term project that aims at creating a digital research environment for the study of the Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture. Digital catalogue entries of manuscripts, text editions, and other relevant records (e.g. certain persons) are encoded in TEI XML. One of the important outcomes of the project is a systematic description of the literary and non-literary texts attested in the Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture. That implies not only encoding, but the establishing of semantically meaningful relations between the texts.

Ethiopian Psalter of the Virgin (Mazmura Dǝngǝl) is an illustrative example of a text with a complex structure and relations with other texts, which can be precisely described through the encoding in TEI XML. The Psalter of the Virgin is a hymnological composition dedicated to St. Mary. It consists of the Psalms of David, the canticles of the Prophets, and the five sections of the Song of Songs (those texts constituting traditionally the Ethiopian Psalter), as well as additional texts of a much later origin, ascribed to a certain monk named Mazmura Dǝngǝl from the 15th century and dedicated to St. Mary (to which I refer to as Marian texts). Those Marian texts consist of an opening prayer and 150 short psalms which correspond to and are inspired by the Psalms of David, 15 prayers corresponding to the canticles of the Prophets and five prayers inspired by the Song of Songs. They are usually written directly after the corresponding texts of the Psalter.

(Sokolinskaia and Pietruschka 2007)

The presence of those Marian texts defines the whole work as Mazmura Dǝngǝl (Psalter of the Virgin). However, it appears that one can’t define Mazmura Dǝngǝl as a collection of the Marian texts. Those Marian texts are always combined with the corresponding texts of the Psalms of David, the canticles of the Prophets, and the Song of Songs.

; Portland, Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project, Abilene Christian University Codex 2, fols. 2r-158r; Portland, Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project, Alwan Codex 2, fols. 1r-94r.

By now there is no evidence for the circulation of the Marian texts of the Psalter of the Virgin on their own. There is evidence for an independent circulation for the opening prayer only, however just in the Psalter manuscripts. Thus, it appears that the Psalter itself constitutes an essential, unavoidable part of the Psalter of the Virgin. This fact might be perfectly reflected by encoding the structure of the Psalter of the Virgin and establishing relations with other texts.

In the project Beta maṣāḥǝft any text with an independent circulation is considered a work and thus it gets an individual record with a first-level ID.

(Liuzzo and Reule 2018)

The Psalms of David, the canticle of the Prophets, and the Song of Songs are attested as text with their independent circulation and ascribed certain IDs in the project. The Marian texts of the Psalter of the Virgin are not attested in their independent circulation, at least by the moment, and thus they can’t be provided with their own individual first-level ID. Only the Psalter of the Virgin in which the Marian texts are combined with the texts of the Psalter can be regarded as a work with an independent circulation. The Psalter of the Virgin was ascribed an ID LIT3985Mazmura in the project Beta maṣāḥǝft.

By now, I propose the following pattern for encoding of the text structure, which reflects the role of the Psalms of David, the canticles of the Prophets, and the Song of Songs as essential parts of the Psalter of the Virgin and assigns the second level IDs to all Marian texts:

…

<label>Psalm 1</label>

</div>

….

</div>

Typically a psalm of the Psalter of the Virgin consists of a psalm of David and a Marian psalm. And this is reflected in the structure of the Psalter of the Virgin presented here. Each psalm of the Psalter of the Virgin has its own second-level ID, as for example, Ps1 (https://betamasaheft.eu/ LIT3985Mazmura #Ps1). This psalm consists of a Psalm of David, which gets its own second-level ID as part of the Psalter of the Virgin (PsD1) and is linked to the same psalm but as part of an independent text, namely the Psalms of David (https://betamasaheft.eu/LIT2000Mazmur#Ps1). The Marian psalm thus receives its own second level ID.

Using those IDs for encoding of specific manuscripts one can distinguish between the Psalms of David being an independent work and the Psalms of David being part of the Psalter of the Virgin. The same is for the canticles of the Prophets and the Song of Songs. As all three works may constitute a part of the Psalter of the Virgin there is a relation (ecrm:CLP46i_may_form_part_of)

(Liuzzo and Reule 2018)

established between the Psalms of David, the canticles of the Prophets and the Song of Songs.

To conclude I want to stress the advantages of encoding in TEI XML such complex data as a work or manuscript record, for it allows for very precise defining of the text structure and for avoiding unnecessary generalizations and simplifications, and thus it contributes to better understanding of a complex written tradition.

Bibliographical references:

Liuzzo, Pietro, and Dorothea Reule. 2018. “Beta Maṣāḥǝft Guidelines.” 2018. https://doi.org/10.25592/BetaMasaheft.Guidelines.

Sokolinskaia, Evgenia, and Ute Pietruschka. 2007. “Mäzmurä Dǝngǝl.” In Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, edited by Siegbert Uhlig, III:896b–897a. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.