VulSearch & the Clementine Vulgate project

Is there be a version of VulSearch for Mac/Linux?

Unfortunately, the current version of VulSearch is only available for Windows, though of course you can always view and search the text online.

I hope that in the future I'll release something similar but cross-platform (in fact, I no longer use Windows myself, so maintaining the existing program in the future will be a problem). At the moment there's nothing more than a vague idea in this direction... I don't know when I'll find time to work on it.

Is there be a Palm OS or other PDA version of VulSearch?

No, and there is no prospect of a PDA version in the foreseeable future.

Will VulSearch work with a later version of the .NET framework than 1.1?

No. The different versions of the Framework are completely separate entities, and VulSearch needs exactly 1.1. You can download it here; it will coexist happily with other versions of the Framework (including 2.* and 3.*).

Can I print a passage from VulSearch?

No, there is no print function in VulSearch. You could print from the online version of the text instead.

Is there a way to extract the additional texts without installing VulSearch?

The texts are self-extracting RAR archives, so you can extract them with any program that deals with RAR files (e.g. the free program UnRarX for Macs).

When starting VulSearch, I get an "Unexpected token" error.

This is probably caused by a bug that led to the bookmarks file becoming corrupted. This bug should be fixed in version 4.1.6; alternatively, move the file C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Local Settings\Application Data\Vulsearch 4\bookmarks.xml somewhere else and then launch VulSearch. (By default, Local Settings is a hidden folder, so you may need to "show hidden files" from the 'Tools -> Folder options...' menu in My Computer first).

When trying to install an additional text, I get a "Could not find a part of the path \Text\..." error.

You need to run (and close) VulSearch at least once before installing additional texts.

I changed the font to Symbol, and now I can't change it back.

This seems to be a bug (or at best a bizarre mis-feature) in Microsoft's font selection dialog box. I'll sort something out in a future version, but for the moment the fix is: click the search box at the bottom of the start menu (in Vista) or choose Run from the start menu (in earlier versions of Windows), and type regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > VulSearch4. Look for the entry MainFontName in the right-hand panel, select it, right click and choose delete. Be careful not to delete anything else in the registry. Start VulSearch, and the default font should be restored.

When I start VulSearch, I get an error message about an input string not being in a correct format.

I believe this bug should have been fixed in VulSearch 4.1.6, so please check you're using the latest version. If you are, and the problem is still there, please let me know!

The problem is in a registry entry. To fix it, click the search box at the bottom of the start menu (in Vista) or choose Run from the start menu (in earlier versions of Windows), and type regedit and press return. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > VulSearch4. In the right-hand pane, you will see various entries: you need to delete one or two of these, depending on what's in the "Stack trace" line of the error message.

• If the error message complained about an error at System.Number.ParseDecimal, then you need to delete the entry called nudHistory.
• If the error message was about an error at System.Number.ParseInt32, you need to delete the entry called LastRefType.
• If the error message was about an error at System.Number.ParseSingle, you need to delete the entries called MainFontSize and VerseFontSize.

To delete an entry, select it, right click, and choose delete. Please be careful not to delete anything else in the registry. This should fix the problem: please let me know either way.

What is the Clementine Vulgate?

After the Council of Trent, which declared in 1546 that the Vulgate alone was to be held as "authentic in public readings, discourses, and disputes, and that nobody might dare or presume to reject it on any pretence" (Sess. IV, De editione et usu sacrorum librorum), the Holy See undertook the task of producing a corrected, standard text of the Vulgate for the use of the universal Church. In 1590, an edition was duly produced in Rome by a commission of scholars, revised further by Sixtus V, and finally approved by him. After his death a further revision was carried out under the Jesuit Franciscus Toletus, and finally the work was printed in 1598 during the pontificate of Clement VIII, whose name has been attached to it since 1641. The Clementine text was the offical version of the Vulgate until 1979.

What version of the text is supplied on your website?

There is a single, definitive Clementine text, namely the Editio Typica published by the Typographus Vaticanus in 1598 under the title "Biblia Sacra Vulgatæ editionis, Sixti V Pontificis Maximi jussu recognita et edita", with the single proviso: "nisi aliquid occurrat, quod typographicæ incuriæ manifeste ascribendum sit" (Clement VIII, Cum sacrorum). This is thus the version that appears here.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to consult a copy of the original printing, and so I have been obliged to work from later texts. The base text I have used is that edited by A. Colunga and L. Turrado (La Editorial Católica, Madrid, 1946). I have also used the meticulously prepared edition of C. Vercellone (Typis S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, Rome, 1861) as a secondary reference, especially to compare doubtful readings.

What editorial decisions have you made in preparing the text?

Firstly, let me state the obvious, namely that I have regarded every word of the text as immutable, and I have transcribed the text as accurately as I have been able, human error notwithstanding. I have also followed faithfully the usual division into books, chapters, and verses. On the other hand, when one looks at the various printed editions of the Vulgate, one sees that there are certain additional conveniences to the reader that have been added differently by each editor. I am no different, and have tried my best to use these devices to make the text as easy to read as possible.

First among these features is the punctuation. Colunga and Turrado have very many fewer commas than Vercellone, and I probably have fewer still: I find that the debauch of commas one finds in earlier texts more often misleads one into giving undue weight to minor subclauses than aids comprehension. I have also tried to make the use of semicolons and colons in the poetry books a little more consistent, but in judging sentence breaks I have only occasionally departed from the choices of my predecessors. In the poetry texts, I have arranged the text into lines, following Colunga and Turrado, who themselves in their Præfatio say they follow other 'recentiores editiones' in this. Finally, I have also provided a division into paragraphs to aid the legibility of the printed text, again generally following Colunga and Turrado.

Minor variations in spelling are also to be found amongst the previous editions: I have tried to settle on those spellings most familiar from the liturgical books printed in the first half of the twentieth century (for example, umquam rather than unquam, annuntiare rather than adnuntiare, caritas rather than charitas). The most visible differences in my text are that I distinguish the semivowel j, and denote the diphthongs ae and oe by ligatures. This has always been extremely common practice in liturgical texts and other christian Latin works, but for some reason doesn't seem to have been found in the Vulgate before now.

Finally, I have used rather brief forms for the titles of the books, following Vercellone or Colunga and Turrado, rather than the more verbose editors like Hetzenauer.

What is the copyright status of your text?

Evidently, any copyright on the text itself has long since lapsed, and so only the various introductions and other editorial material found in Colunga and Turrado would ever have been under copyright. I have not included any such material, though my understanding is that the copyright on this has in any case expired.

I thought long and hard about asserting copyright to this edition and releasing it under a 'free document' or 'open text' licence: I am no legal expert, and I don't want to find that someone takes the text and restricts its public availability using some legal sleight of hand. (There is also a danger that people will innocently change or deliberately pervert the text, leading to a confused set of similar versions, but I hardly think a formal copyright notice will affect that—see below for the steps I'm taking to ensure that the integrity of the text can be guaranteed.) In the end, this seemed so patently absurd, if not blasphemous, that I've settled on the only sensible course, which is to release the text into the public domain, trusting to the conscience of those who use it to acknowledge their source and make clear any modifications they make.

Does your edition carry an Imprimatur?

On 9th January 2006, the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales gave its approval to the publication of the text.

Has the text been proof-read?

The entire text has been proof-read at least twice, some books more. Full information on who has proof-read what can be found in the source/data.txt file in the text source archive. I am under no illusions: no amount of proof-reading will eliminate every last error, and I am absolutely committed to correcting the text even after its release. I ask all those who use the text to send me details of any errors they find, and I will be scrupulous in swiftly emending the texts as necessary. The latest texts will always be available from the project website.

Why should I trust your text?

The first thing to say is that I take personal responsibility for the whole text. Many different people have helped with the proof-reading, and I am extremely grateful to them; however, I have also re-read every word of the Bible myself, and I take full responsibility for any errors that remain. You may say that this merely translates doubts about an unknown text into doubts about an unknown editor, and one whose identity seems rather shadowy.

Here are some practical suggestions. The very best thing you could do is to put your hand in your pocket and pay an independent professional to proof-read the whole text: this would be a great service to everyone who uses the text. More realistically, you could pick a random chapter, check for yourself how accurate the text is, and repeat until satisfied. You could email me and decide whether you are happy with my response. You could search Google to see if there are any websites accusing me of being a charlatan supplying a defective text. Or you might have a better solution of your own.

In what formats is the text available?

The native format is plain text with some improvised markup, described in detail here. The text is also available as HTML for viewing online, and in PDF for printing. The text is also going to be added in due course to the Oxford Text Archive, as XML with the TEI Lite DTD.

Why is the native format of the text not some flavour of XML?

In short, for historical reasons: the text was originally created for inclusion in the VulSearch computer program, and the extra storage space and processing time that would have been needed for a fuller markup were prohibitive at the time. A script that converts the native format to valid XHTML can be found in the source archive, and this could easily be adapted to produce whatever XML tags you wish.

How can I cite your text?

Here is a suggested way to cite the text:

Biblia Sacra juxta Vulgatam Clementinam, M. Tweedale (ed.). Available at http://vulsearch.sf.net/html: accessed on xx/yy/zz.

What if I cite your text, and you subsequently correct or otherwise alter it?

This is a problem I am extremely sensitive to: I know from experience how frustrating it is when electronic texts are like sands shifting beneath one's feet. To address this, I have made all the revisions of the text available in a Subversion repository. The first text released once all the proof-reading was complete is taken to be the 'canonical' base text. I call this text the Quasimodo text (because it was released on Low Sunday, 2005). This and all subsequent texts will be dated, and MD5 checksums made available. Recreating the text as it stood on a given date can be done in a single line: see this page for detailed instructions.