Parts Level:  Sequence Number

Definition:  A number designating the parts of a given codex that have independent origin from one another (frequently but not necessarily with differing place or date).

Comment:  Note that this field is called "Part" on DS-Access's visible form, but "SequenceNum" in the field designation in tblParts; it is the same thing.

If the codex was produced in essentially a single campaign, it is considered to have one "Part" and the database remains at the default number, "1." The cataloguer/inputter will sometimes have no doubts about the separate sections of production of a manuscript, and sometimes will have to make a judgment call, bearing in mind the reason for separate "Parts" in the database: to offer options for more precise cataloguing and searching the database especially as regards place and date of origin. For example, "England" and "England?" and "France" may be said of three parts of a single codex. Note that a shift in scribal hand or in decorative style alone may be handled more appropriately in the Number of Scribes or in the Artist fields, because Part implies an entirely separate campaign (such as when an owner, 50 years after the initial formation of the book, adds another text but deliberately matches layout to the original compilation; this would constitute a new Part).

Do use the "Part" option to deal with bindings and flyleaves that are themselves fragments from separate manuscripts.

Note that the Part Number has the same function as the Sequence Numbers at the Text and Image levels, i.e. it will determine the order in which the various Parts display on the web. Thus, if the cataloguer/inputter wants the membra disiecta that are the flyleaves to display in second place after the main body of the codex, even though the flyleaves may be bound first in the book, he/she should assign Part 1 to the main codex and Part 2 to the flyleaves (or vice versa if the decision is the reverse; DS itself leaves the choice to the cataloguer/inputter).

Example:

• UCB 87 with Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3 (all of the same origin, but currently disbound and shelved separately with foliation beginning anew with each part) [thus the choice to handle this manuscript as "composite" with multiple parts was based on in-house curatorial needs]
• UCB 131 with 2 Parts, to accomodate the leaves from a completely different book of hours bound in at the end of the main body of the book
• Plimpton MS 21 with Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 (both from England from the second half of the 13th century, but with evidence of independent circulation until their common binding in the 15th century)
• Plimpton MS 287 with Pt. 1 used for the codex itself, a primer copied in France during the second half of the 15th century, but bound in modern times in a leaf from an antiphonal, England?, s. XV which constitutes Part 2.

Properties:  Data type: text, with default value set at "1." Field size: 4 characters.

Required?:  Yes.