Principles of transcription

1. Maintain the original entry - carry out the transcription as faithfully as possible to the original, without correcting the writer's mistakes. In a few words which the scribe wrote using their phonetic sound (e.g. “iak”), write their original entry in the transcription.
    
2. Lines of text - the transcription should be written in lines (fragments in grey should be omitted). If the word is divided between two lines, it should be written as in the original, that is, without connecting it.
    
3. Punctuation - all punctuation marks or others (e.g. commas, full stops, hyphens, etc.) appearing in the original should be ignored.
    
4. Writing capital letters - the mechanism recognises both small and capital letters as correct.
    
5. Shortening - the general rules accepted by us say that a contraction used by the scribe should be written in full. This document contains contractions which are exceptions to the rule, in other words, those which do not need to be written in full (this concerns contractions used for polite phrases).

You can find the full principles of transcription here.

Helpful tips

1. The contractions that appear in the document (polite phrases) belong to the exceptions which do not need to be written in full.
    
2. The scribe wrote the letters ł and s in two differing ways.

You will find more useful tips for transcribing old texts here.

Exercise 23

Model letters

Exercise 23

Abbreviations