The University of Chicago Library Patrologia Latina Database Published by Chadwyck-Healey, Inc.

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Bibliographic Searching:
Author and Title: In bibliographic searching, punctuation and spacing must match exactly that in the online bibliography. Click on the Terms Button to verify forms.

Expect Latin forms of names such as Gregorius or Hieronymus instead of Gregory or Jerome. Modern authors' names have generally been Latinized (e.g., Schoenemannus instead for Schoenemann), but not always (e.g., Hervet, Gentian). "Auctor incertus" is used when a document has no clearly specified author; "Auctores varii" for an anthology of documents or when Migne has indicated several authors for a document; and "Editores" when the text was composed by Migne or his editors.

Some titles in the database may be quite long and contain various forms of punctuation. In searching the bibliography by title, one should use a minimum number of terms, choosing a term or phrase that is unique within the bibliography or two unique words with the AND operator.

Date and Period: Exact dates have not been entered into the source data and therefore the database in not searchable by date. The main chronological sequence of authors in the database runs from about 200 C.E. to 1216 C. E. and have MED for period. Prefatory material, notes, and appendices date up to 1865 and are designated by MOD.

Code: [Taken from the Chadwyck-Healey PLD site]

The Editorial Board of the Patrologia Latina Database decided that it would benefit the user for more recent bibliographic information to be included in the coding of the data. Individual documents have therefore been given one of three codes, each corresponding to one or more of three standard reference works:

• Code C
  DEKKERS (Eligius) Clavis patrum latinorum qua in novum Corpus Christianorum edendum optimas quasque scriptorum recensiones a Tertulliano ad Bedam commode recludit Eligius Dekkers opera usus qua rem praeparavit et iuvit Aemilius Gaar. pp.xii. 461. Brugis, 1951. 8o
  
• Code G
  Pour revaloriser Migne. Tables rectificatives par Mgr. P. Glorieux. pp. 82. Lille, 1952. 8o
  
• Code S
  Ad utramque J.P. Migne Patrologiam Supplementum sive Auctarium Solesmense. Solesmis, 1900, etc. 8o

The code appears in brackets after the entry for each relevant document in the Search Results. An asterisk appearing with the code denotes that in one or more of the reference works cited, the author attribution given by Migne is queried or changed. For example:

(C)* would denote that a document has an alternative author specified in the Clavis patrum latinorum, or that the author given by Migne is queried.
(C,S) would denote that reference is made to the document in the Clavis patrum latinorum and the Supplementum.
(C,G,S)* would denote that reference is made to the document in all three works, and that in one or more of them Migne's author attribution is queried or an alternative author specified.

Orthographic Considerations:
Do not expect standard orthography in this database of texts spanning more than fifteen centuries. One can find, for example, forms such as quaecumque, quaecunque, quae cumque, quae cunque, quecumque, quecunque and qaaecumque (cf. also ydolatria=idolatria, abere=habere, racio=ratio, trahicere=traicere, seperatus=separatus, cessio=sessio, zabulus=diabolus, set=sed, autor=auctor, asumptus=assumptus). The consonantal Uu and Ii appear only occasionally in the database; expect mostly Vv and Jj (e.g., serui 4 and servi over 10,000; iudex 74 and judex 6780). Enclitics such as -que, -ne, -ve, and -cum have not been cut (e.g., expect urbisque). One finds both dissimilation and assimilation (e.g., admitto / ammitto and adpono / appono). Wildcard characters and Boolean operators can help detect such anomalies. One may enter quaecu.que or qu.?ecu.que or .?udex or iudex|judex or urbis.* or a[dm]mitt.* to achieve the desired results.

Latin is a highly inflected language and the wildcard operator of period-asterisk (.*) should be used regularly (e.g., type in puell.* to find all forms of the noun puella). Nevertheless, one should use wildcard and Boolean operators only when necessary since there is currently a set limit of 3,000 for the number of unique forms into which a search term can expand. Searches that pass that limit will not run.

There are diacritics in the database, mostly for non-Latin languages. Words that contain accented characters must be entered as such; however, in order to enter words without having to pay attention to accents simply turn on Caps Lock and type in all uppercase. Thus, entering ECCLESIASTIQUE finds the word ecclésiastique. This is best since accentuation is not always consistent (e.g., one finds not only traité, but also traite and traitè in the database).

Data-Entry Idiosyncrasies:
Several data-entry errors have been found in some databases either from typesetting errors in the original source or from rekeying the documents. One should avoid making arguments from silence. (e.g., qaus for quas or qoud for quod). Also, some confusion seems to have arisen between the letter "u" and the letter "n" (for example, one finds nnnc for nunc or qnod for quod).

The Migne edition of the Patrologia Latina includes references to standard editions of texts in use prior to the publication of the Patrologia Latina. These numeric references appear in bold type throughout the texts. Unfortunately, they were encoded only with a "bold" tag. There is no way, therefore, for PhiloLogic to pass over these numeric references in searching. For example, searching for subreptionem decernat generates three hits. However, a particular instance of this phrase from Leo I's Epistolae will not be found because of these bold numbers. To find this instance, one would have to type subreptionem 1217 decernat. For this reason one should run Phrase Searches with some caution; try a Proximity Search within the same sentence instead.

Punctuation and Full-Text Searching:
Hyphens: Hypens act as word separators. Thus, one should treat hypenated expressions as separate words excluding the hyphen (e.g. if searching for Pseudo-Augustinus, type in pseudo augustinus.)
Apostrophes: One must include apostrophes when searching words with apostrophes and one must insert a space after apostrophes since in this database, which contains more French and Italian than English, apostrophes act as word separators (e.g., only by typing d' amour will one find "d'amour"). English possessives and contractions must also be entered with a space after the apostrophe (e.g., to search for "Tertullian's" enter Tertullian' s).
Ampersands: The ampersand (&) is not a searchable character. Avoid Phrase Searches where an ampersand may be used as a conjunction.

Formatting and Display:
Character Display: At this time, Greek characters display but cannot be searched.
Results Display: "Page" numbers displayed in the linked citations refer to the volume number and column number in Migne. Also, please be advised that, when searching for two or more terms within the same paragraph, the concordance report expands the amount of text displayed to include all of the search terms in the paragraph. At times this text can be several screens in length since some paragraph divisions in documents in this database are very far apart.
Notes: There are notes throughout Patrologia Latina Database. In PhiloLogic notes never interfere when searching the text to which they refer. Note references are linked to notes and text from notes are linked to page references.
Images: There are several images throughout the database. Most are displayed as inline images once the user pulls up any level of context (e.g., page, paragraph, h3, h2, and h1), but not from a first-level results screen.

Full-Text Searching Using PhiloLogic

The term(s) to be searched in selected documents are entered into the Search for: box on the search-form. Word searches in PhiloLogic are by default case insensitive, so that a search finds both lower and upper case representations of words. The user must, however, take into account diacritics when searching databases that have accented characters. PhiloLogic's wildcard characters may also be employed to match many forms. The simplest search in PhiloLogic is a single term search without wildcards. If searching for a term such as "peccatum" in the database, simply type the word peccatum into the Search for: box and press the SEARCH button.
Tip: At this time, only the first 999,000 occurrences of a word are available in the results formats "Occurrences with Context" and "Occurrences Line by Line." Because EEBO-TCP is a very large database, one will encounter this limit with some regularity. One can limit a search by using the bibliographic fields or one can run a Frequency by Title search, from which all occurrences are available.

Boolean Operators

| (vertical bar):

serves as the OR operator (e.g., freedom|liberty retrieves instances of either). Nevertheless, uppercase OR will automatically be converted to the vertical bar during searching.

! (exclamation point)

serves as the NOT operator (e.g., !holy ghost retrieves occurrences of ghost, but not holy ghost, whereas Jesus !Christ finds occurrences of Jesus without Christ). In any case, uppercase NOT will automatically be converted to the exclamation point during searching.

Wildcard Characters in Full-Text Searching
Wildcard characters allow the user to enter a single search entry that may find many forms. This is in contrast to a simple word search which requires an exact match in order to find a word. Wildcard characters can be useful, for example, in identifying cognates made obscure by affixes and vowel weakening, inconsistencies due to irregular orthography, and variations on account of word inflection as well as for discovering potential emendations for uncertain readings. The most commonly used wildcards are listed below.

. (period):

matches any single character (e.g., gentlem.n will retrieve gentleman and gentlemen).

* (asterisk):

matches any string of characters, anchoring the match at the beginning of a word (e.g., cigar* will match cigar, cigars, cigarette, etc.), anchoring the match at the end of a word (e.g., *habit will retrieve habit, cohabit, and inhabit), or in the middle (e.g., c*eers matches compeers, cheers, and careers).

.? (period question mark):

matches the characters entered or the characters entered plus one more character in place of the question mark (e.g., hono.?r matches both honor and honour and cat.? matches cat and cats, but not cathedral, Catherine, etc.). Try co.?templa.ion to match contemplation, contemplacion, co˜templation, co˜templacion, comtemplation, and comtemplacion or ..?onderful to match wonderful and vvonderful.

[a-z] (square brackets):

matches a single character found in the specified range (e.g., [c-f]at will match cat, dat, eat, and fat) or any letters within the brackets (e.g., d[e|i]spis[i|y]ng will match despising, despisyng, dispising, and dispisyng).

Accents and Special Characters
PhiloLogic requires that one take into account diacritics when searching documents with accented characters in both bibliographic and full-text searching. The system provides three ways to search for accented characters: 1) simply type the required accented character from the keyboard; 2) use a capital letter to match all accented and non-accented forms of a letter; or 3) enter the two character representations listed below.
Tip: If you do not want to have to think about accents, turn on "Caps Lock" and type in all uppercase. This is recommended since accentuation varies: one finds, for example, naivete, naivetè, and naïveté in databases. Be sure to enter and, or, and not in lowercase in phrase searches.

capital letter = any form of the letter

(e. g., E matches é ê è ë and e (no accent) and É Ê È Ë and E (no accent).

grave = (\) back slash

(e.g., a\ matches à).

acute = (/) forward slash

(e.g., e/ matches é).

circumflex = (^) caret

(e.g., e^ matches ê).

cedilla = (,) comma

(e.g., c, matches ç).

ümlaut/dieresis = (") double quote

(e.g., u" matches ü).

tilde = (~) tilde

(e.g., n~ matches ñ).

ae-ligature (æ) = ae

the ligature is resolved into two letters. (e.g., to search æther type in aether).

oe-ligature (œ) = oe

the ligature is resolved into two letters. (e.g., to search œconomy type in oeconomy).

Punctuation and Full-Text Searching
All punctuation should be stripped from word searches except for apostrophes. Apostrophes must be entered as characters.

apostrophe (') = must be entered with a space following.

(e.g., to search d'amour type in d' amour.

hyphen (-) = a space

the hyphen is not a searchable character. (e.g., to search capo-mastro type in capo mastro).

ampersand (&) = should be stripped

is not a searchable character. Avoid Phrase Searches where an ampersand could be used as a conjunction.

period, question mark, exclamation point, and comma = should be stripped

are not searchable characters.

parentheses, various brackets, and double quotes = should be stripped

are not searchable characters and are word-breaking (e.g., to search vor[r]ia enter vor r ia).

common mathematical symbols

the equal sign (=) and minus sign (-) will produce a "Nothing found" message. The plus sign (+) is not a searchable character, but, if entered, will be ignored.

Text Formatting
Formatting (e.g., font shifts, superscript, subscript, italics, bold, underline, etc.) are ignored in a search (e.g., search 1^st simply as 1st).

Selecting a Search Option:
One may use upper or lower case letters; searches are case insensitive. Wildcards can be used in all search options. Be sure to review sections on accentuation and punctuation in full-text searching.

• Single Term and Phrase Search: To search a single term in the entire database or a defined corpus make sure that the Single Term and Phrase Search radio button is highlighted, simply enter the term into the Search Text(s) For: box, and press the SEARCH button. Single Term searching supports wildcard characters and the Boolean OR-operator, which is the vertical bar (|). Entering, for example, freedom|liberty retrieves all occurrences of the word "freedom" or "liberty" in the entire database or a specified corpus. Phrase searching restricts the search to adjacent words in a particular order (punctuation in the text, except for apostrophes, should not be entered).
• Phrase Separated by a Number of Words: If you are looking for a phrase that could have intervening words, turn on the Separated by radio button and enter the number of words (e.g., "mystery of His body" or "mystery of Christ's body", then enter mystery body).
  Note: For better performance it is a good idea to exclude very common words such as "of" in separated phrase searches.
• Proximity Searching in the Same Sentence or Paragraph: Searching for more than one term in a single sentence or paragraph without regard to adjacen Please note that many texts do not mark paragraphs and so the entire text is indexed as one paragraph. Also, some texts have the sign ¶ instead of a paragraph tag <p>. These signs are not indexed as paragraphs.

• Occurrences with Context is the default reporting format option. In this format each occurrence is represented by a short citation consisting of the author's name and the title of the work followed by links to the occurrences within several levels of context such as page, paragraph, scene, act, chapter, body, or contents. Below the citation there is a passage of text consisting of some forty words on either side of the key word, which is highlighted. Clicking on the links takes one to that level of context at which point one finds links to the previous and next sections.
• Occurrences Line by Line (KWIC) is a good format for scanning or printing large result sets since it limits the text displayed to a single line of text. Each occurrence is represented by its Title ID with a linked reference to where the term(s) in question occur within the document. At the bottom of the report one finds the Results Bibliography, which lists the full references for the Title ID.
• Line by Line (KWIC) Sorted: One can also sort Line by Line results. Under Refined Search Results, click on the radio button and indicate whether the results are to be sorted by the word to the left or to the right of the keyword.

• Frequency by Author, Year, or Title Reports do not display text. They list the number of occurrences in descending order of frequency with the frequency in bold and the rate per 10,000 in square brackets. There is also a link to the digital table of contents for each title and a link to the occurrences found within that title. At the top of frequency reports one also finds the number of unique forms derived from the search criteria (e.g., clemenc*) within the database and a full list of those unique forms (e.g., clemency | clemencye | clemencie | clemencia).
• Frequency per 10,000 Reports differ in that they list frequency in descending order of rate per 10,000 with [frequency] in brackets (e.g., 4.72 [4] means 4.72 occurrences in 10,000 words with a total of 4 occurrences in that title, author, or group of years.)
• Collocation Table allows the user to discover lexical collocations within the database. The user selects one word as the node or keyword and enters it into the Search for: box. Wildcards are allowed, but no phrases; single terms only are permitted. Select the number of words that a given word can be separated from the keyword (5 words is the default). The program then scans the concordance entries for the keyword and lists in table format all the words which occur within the specified distance of the keyword in order of frequency. The three columns represent words on either side of the keyword, words to the left of the keyword, and words to the right of the keyword.
• Line by Line (KWIC) Sorted by Keyword allows a user to sort his/her results by the words which locate to the right or left of the keyword. This report does not support phrase searching. It can only be generated for a single word or word patter (e.g., myster*). Results of over 20,000 cannot be sorted.
• Word in Clause Position (Theme/Rheme) A Word in Clause Position Report can only be generated for a single word or word pattern (e.g., concord*). Word positions are calculated on within what percentage of the length of the clause the word falls. Front of Clause (first 35%); Last (last 10%), Remainder (middle 55%), Too Short (clause length 3 words or less). Words of 2 letters or fewer and numbers are excluded in calculating clause length. Please note that clauses are identified with punctuation as the primary determining factor so many unpunctuated clauses will go undetected. This feature is experimental and should be used only as a rough indicator. The search can take some time for complete results, but one does receive results as they are ready. When the report is finished, click on the link to "Statistical Summary" to see a rough indication of word position.
  

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