The database as a methodological tool
Introduction by OpenMethods Editor (Helen Katsiadakis): In the context of medieval and early Tudor texts scholarship, this paper discusses the methodological use of the database not simply to store information, but to clarify points of tension between the questions asked and the information provided in order to find answers.
The traditional role of the database in scholarship has been as a repository – a place to store information for later retrieval. Over the past couple of years, however, I’ve found myself becoming more interested in the methodological use of the database not simply to store information, but to clarify points of tension between the questions we’re asking and the information we’re using to attempt to find answers.
My scholarship attempts to reassess medieval and early Tudor texts by setting paratextual and contextual elements equal with the text in examining questions of staging and hagiography. I do this for a couple of reasons: first, I think that our disciplinary and sub-disciplinary silos tend to get in the way of understanding how literary, devotional, and performed texts would have functioned as a part of the larger culture of late medieval England. Second, accepting that context requires us to not just examine the text as a platonic ideal, but also the means of its production, reception, and dissemination. In short, I treat the medieval text as part of a holistic. This work involves thinking not only of the ways that the text doesn’t fit our general expectations (performance and non-codex witnesses, for example, do not fit neatly into the categories we’ve created to deal with the codex book online), but also about the inscription, reception, and re-inscription of ideas.
Original publication date: 10/08/2017.