Folio start gallows

[bunny]

Also posted on another discussion list.

Considering almost all folios start with 1 of 4 gallows with the occasional
o thrown in front how is that explainable in terms of natural language?  Do
any manuscripts or books start with only a choice of 4 letters?  If not
alphabet letters could they show which "code subset" to refer to. Could it
be a 4  subset rotating code or even 4 completely different codes used? 


Bunny

[davidjackson]

Hi bunny long time no speak! 
Yes it could be a rotating code. 
But I personally think it's more likely to be a form of chapter marker, like a pilcrow.

[bunny]

Hi bunny long time no speak! 
Yes it could be a rotating code. 
But I personally think it's more likely to be a form of chapter marker, like a pilcrow.

Yes, a very long time, but I guess a lot of us have more time on our hands at the moment to put back into the manuscript.

The pilcrow is not a form of paragraph marker I know much about in manuscripts.  Is it found in various forms within a manuscript or folio or is it just a singular form usually.  If it is a pilcrow would that work when found also amongst the text with regularity?

Bunny

"They roll us like we roll dice and count the numbers"

[-JKP-]

I think the first gallows in each paragraph is more similar to a pilcrow than it is to a letter.

[ReneZ]

In a recent count I did, I found 711 paragraph starts.

Of these, 604 (85%) start with p,t,k,f:
325 * p
170 * t
77 * k
32 * f

The remaining 107 (15%) start with q, o, "introducing gallows", d, s, y, "rare character", sh, l or ch.
In that order.
One conspicuous aspect is that all intruding gallows (15) have a single leg.

[-JKP-]

,,,
The pilcrow is not a form of paragraph marker I know much about in manuscripts.  Is it found in various forms within a manuscript or folio or is it just a singular form usually.  If it is a pilcrow would that work when found also amongst the text with regularity?
,,,

Yes, the medieval pilcrow/capitulum symbol was used within text with great regularity in both Greek and Latin texts. I have hundreds of examples (maybe as many as 1000 examples).


Edit, addition... I can't remember if I posted this on my blog or on the forum, but this is an example of in-text pilcrows/capitulum symbols that I posted a few years ago: