On-line Guide to Searching

Texts in the collection retain the variable spellings of their original printed or hand-written texts. The only editorial intervention in spellings consists of the expansion of contracted forms.

In searching for a particular word, therefore, you must search for the different possible spellings. For example, in searching for the verb live you must search for live, liue, lyve and lyue.

The wild-card character * can be placed at the ends of strings, so that, for example, a search for lyu* will find lyue, lyuing, lyuyng, lyuinge, lyued, and so forth.

Use of the underscore character in texts requires some care in particular kinds of search.
1. Proper names are linked by the underscore, and need to be searched for explicitly. For example to find alexander_barclay you need to search for alexander_b*.
2. Prefixes, typographically separated in the original texts, are linked to their root by the underscore. To find examples of 'incontinent' search for both incont* and in_cont*. To find examples of 'alive' search for alive, aliue, alyve, alyue, and also a_live, a_liue, etc.
We aim to modify this tagging system and simplify such searching in the near future.

Some hints for look-up:

  • i and y are used somewhat interchangeably (as above)
  • u and v are used somewhat interchangeably (as above)
  • sh often appears as sch (e.g. shall, schall)
  • a final -e may be appended to a word (e.g. abbess, abbesse)
  • there is variation between -er- and -ar- (e.g. abuser, abusar; perchance, parchance)
  • modern -an- may appear as -aun- (e.g. change, chaunge)
  • ou and ow are interchangeable (e.g. bound, bownd)
  • suffixes vary in their vowel: for -s, -es, also look up -is and -ys (e.g. bounds, bowndis, chanted, chantyd)
  • the doubling of consonants is variable (e.g. cherry, chery, chancellor, chauncelar)
  • the doubling of vowels (or the marking of length by a final -e) is variable (e.g. cheer, cheere, chere; blood, bloode, blode)
  • vowels and/or diphthongs may vary in spelling (e.g. breath, brethe; clear, clere; board, bord, borde; boat, bote)
  • there is some interchangeability of c and s (e.g. chalice, chalis)

    • Other aids to finding unusual spellings:

    Look up the word you wish to find in the full Oxford English Dictionary. Each entry has at its head a list of the various spellings attested, arranged chronologically.

    Consult Appendix B in A Concordance to the Complete English Poems of John Skelton. There modern forms of words are accompanied by all the spellings found in the multiple hand-written and printed sources in which Skelton's poems survive. This provides a reasonably representative sample of early sixteenth century spellings.