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Subject indexing
When the catalogue was launched, subject indexing was provided for anonymous works only, using Latin subject headings based on those used by the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues. In 2020 we decided to replace those subject headings with English-language equivalents that were aligned with those used by the Library of Congress, to reduce their number slightly, and to extend them to authored works. These changes are currently (October 2020) in progress and should be complete by spring 2021. During the period October-spring 2021 results from filtering by subject will be inconsistent.
The new subject headings are outlined below. They represent only the first stage in an iterative process that will be refined as time goes on, and we welcome feedback on the categories, which can be raised as an issue on GitHUb.
Books of the Bible, with or without gloss; commentaries on the Bible or parts of it; tools for the study of the Bible (indexes, concordances, texts on Biblical names and places); so-called Biblical ‘apocrypha’.
Booklists, library catalogues.
Texts of religious devotion, meditation, mysticism and contemplation; prayers and hymns (if not liturgical); revelations and visions; religious lyric and narrative poetry.
Texts by all writers of classical antiquity and pagan writers of late antiquity (but not late antique Christian writers); commentaries on those texts that do not fall into other subject areas (e.g. for commentaries on Aristotle see philosophy, for commentaries on Horace see classical literature); texts on mythography.
Texts and documents relating to the papacy or secular clergy.
Texts on courtesy and upbringing; manners and etiquette.
Single-sheet documents independent or bound into codexes; documentary materials written in (or added to) codexes; collections of documents, e.g. cartularies, registers.
Texts on the history of particular places; descriptions of places; travel and pilgrimage guides; ‘de mirabilibus mundi’; for Biblical geography see Bible.
Texts on grammar, etymology, spelling; dictionaries and lexica; texts on metre.
Narratives relating to the lives and miracles of particular saints; collections of such narratives; material relating to the life of the Virgin Mary and Christ.
Texts on the art of heraldry and the origins of heraldry; collections of heraldry, rolls of arms.
Texts relating to the recent or distant past except for texts relating to Biblical history; biographies and lives of secular individuals as opposed to saints.
Indexes or tabulae to other works, formal and informal.
Texts of civil law, commentaries thereon; texts of canon law, and commentaries theron; texts of feudal, urban or other customary law, and commentaries thereon; church councils and synods, papal decretals and bulls; statutes of institutions and organizations.
Non-religious writings; commentaries on such writings; fables and didactic literature; satire; drama; letters, letter collections; speeches and orations; ‘humanistic’ writings of the renaissance; popular and folk literature including proverbs.
Books used for mass or office; books of devotion deriving from or closely related to the liturgy (esp. Books of Hours); works relating to the theology, interpretation or performance of liturgy.
Theoretical and practical texts on human and veterinary medicine; medical recipes; herbals; popular medicine including charms and prognostications, chiromancy.
Texts and documents relating to monks, nuns, friars, and other religious orders; monastic rules; texts for novices; commentaries on monastic rules; writings in the Vitas Patrum tradition.
Texts on the theory or study of music.
Works on the natural world; encyclopaedias; bestiaries; lapidaries.
Logic; moral philosophy.
Works of political science and political philosophy, including texts in the ‘mirror of princes’ tradition and the Secreta secretorum; works on the orders of society collectively or individually, including texts on chivalry and knighthood; military manuals.
Works relating to games and pasttimes, including hunting.
Instruction in the art of prose or poetic writing; speeches and orations considered as models of form; treatises on dictamen and letter-writing.
Texts relating to the quadrivium (except music) including astronomy and astrology and mathematics; texts on compotus and calendar; texts relating to ‘practical’ or ‘popular’ science (except medicine); including agriculture; optics and perspective; alchemy; recipes other than medical.
Sermons; exempla; sermon notes and aids; artes praedicandi.
Works of the Church Fathers and of later theologians; works of systematic, sacramental, pastoral, etc. theology; ascetic theology; texts on the theology of the sacraments including mass, confession and penance, excommunication. Works relating to the performance of the liturgy should be indexed under Liturgy and works relating to the administration of penance and excommunication should be indexed under Law.