JMMH Style Guide

Journal of Medieval Military History Style Sheet

Note: some browsers will not display italic correctly on this site.  For this style sheets, everything underlined should be read as italics.

The basic style for JMMH volumes is the Speculum style as outlined on the Speculum style sheet (appended below), which should also be referred to. With the exception of the first style-point below (under “Bibliographic references”), and also that we ask for italics rather than underlining in manuscripts, all the points listed here are as given on the Speculum style sheet. Please use left justification and double spaced lines.

The Most Common Mistakes. Please make an effort to follow these rules (also given below):

-Give page numbers for all citations using p. or pp. except (1) when giving the full range of pages of a journal article, or (2) when citing multi-volume books, for which the format is, e.g.: Title, 3 vols. (London, 1880-1890), 3:11-27. Note that the exception for journal articles does not include essays or chapters in collections, for which pp. should be used.

Give authors’ or editors’ full names, not just initials, unless they use initials on their bylines or title pages. This is especially important because it is especially laborious for the editors to fix.

-Elide page ranges to the tens place for number over 100. Hence: pp. 110-32, pp. 204-05; pp. 1017-19; but pp. 2-17, pp. 123-204.

-For English-language books, articles, and chapters, capitalize the first word in a title or subtitle, and also all other words except articles (a, an, the) and prepositions: Soldiers’ Lives through History: The Middle Ages. Use these rules of capitalization even if they are not used in the original publication. Foreign language titles use other rules, generally equivalent to their sentence case, e.g. French capitalize only first word and proper nouns; Latin capitalize first word, proper nouns, and proper adjectives.

-Do not italicize idem, ibid., or etc. Note ibid. always has a period and is not capitalized unless it is the start of a citation sentence.

-Use American punctuation and spelling (honor, valor, favor, neighbor, etc.). Use double quotation marks (“) (with single quotation marks for quotations inside quotations) and remember that commas and periods go inside the punctuation, while semicolons and colons go outside: See Jones, “Short Title”; Smith, “Other Reference,” pp. 12-13; Lefevre, “Troisième livre,” p. 7; Source, cap. 40, ed. Cooper and Fletcher, p. 1035.

Journal Title Volume Number (Year), without commas after the journal title or the number: Speculum 75 (2000), 546–52, quotation at p. 547. Do not include the issue number or month, e.g. 74/2 or (April 2000) , only the volume number and year (unless the journal is not continuously paginated by year).

Use square brackets for parentheses inside parentheses: (Arthur Richard Dufty, European Armour in the Tower of London [London, 1968])

Bibliographic references

Use footnotes, with Arabic numeration.

A. N. Other, ed., [spacing and use of points in names in which initials are used; use initials rather than names only if the author does so on the title page or in the byline]

Title of Work: The Sub-Title [capitalisation as for English-language works; other standard rules apply for titles in other languages: see Speculum style sheet]

—————–

Abbreviations used in bibliographic references

ed. for edition or for “edited by” [before name, whether one or more editors]; ed., eds. for editor, editors [after name, e.g. Smith and Jones, eds., Short Title, p. 7]; vol. vols.; no. 0  nos. 0-00; p. 0 pp. 000-00 [elide to tens]; n. 0 nn. 00-00.

repr. trans. rev.

Rochester, NY; Washington, DC.  Generally such specifications are unnecessary unless there is significant ambiguity without them, e.g. Cambridge, MA vs. Cambridge, England.   Due to the frequency with which JMMH articles cite Boydell and Brewer publications, and the absence of significant publishers in Woodbridge, NJ, it is not necessary to specify Woodbridge, Suffolk/Woodbridge, England.  E.g.:  Clifford J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360 (Woodbridge, 2000).

Ibid. (if at start of sentence)/ibid.; Idem (if at start of sentence)/idem; et al.; passim (best not used extensively); op. cit. (but avoid using this; use author, short-title reference instead: see below under “Short references at subsequent citations”)

MS MSS; fol. 0, fols. 000r-000v

v., vv.  for verse, verses;  l., ll. for line, lines.

PL, MGH – but announce use of abbreviations for reference works: if a work is referred to frequently, give it in full at first instance with [hereafter XXX] appropriately placed to explain subsequent use of abbreviation XXX.

—————–

Published volumes

Author’s name [as given on title-page, but note spacing of initials, above], Title of Published Volume (City/Town of publication, Date of publication), pp. 000-00

Name and Name, eds. and trans., Title (City, date), p. 0.  [Here eds. and trans. = editors and translators.]

. . . Title of Published Volume, 2nd ed. (Date, repr. City, Date), pp. 000-00, here 000

. . . Title of Published Volume, 4 vols. (City, Date), 2:45-48 [= volume 2, pp. 45-48 –
Don’t use Roman numeral for volume number; only use Roman numerals (i) for page numbers that are in Roman numerals, and (ii) where they occur in manuscript shelfmarks.] . . .

. . . Title of Published Volume, ed. Name, 4 vols. (City, Date), 1:142  OR Name, ed., Title of Published Volume, 4 vols. (City, Date), 1:142

. . . Also acceptable where number of volumes is already given elsewhere (but avoid inconsistent style):
. . . Title of Published Volume, 2 (City, Date), p. 0, n. 0

. . .Title of Published Volume, Title of Series 0 (City, Date)

—————–

Articles

Author’s name, “Article Title,” Journal Title 0 (Date), 000-00 [Don’t use p./pp. for articles published in journals when giving the full page range of the article.  Use Arabic numerals for volume number.]

. . . Journal Title, n.s. 0 (Date)

. . ., “Article Title,” in Title of Published Volume, ed. Name (City, Date), pp. 000-00

—————–

Unpublished secondary works

Author’s name, “Title of Work” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Name of Institution, Date), p. 0

—————–

Short references at subsequent citations

Author, Short Title, p. 0
Author, “Short Title,” pp. 000-00

—————–

Manuscript references

Name of City/Town, Name of Library, MS Shelfmark, fols. 000r-000v

Spelling and Punctuation

Use American spellings (honor, armor, specialize, defense, center, maneuver, etc.)

Follow American punctuation style:  periods (points) and commas go inside quotation marks even if not present in the original quotation; semicolons and colons go outside.

Capitalization

King Henry, the king, the king of . . .

the earl of . . .

the bishop of . . .

the priory of . . .

the battle of . . .

the siege of . . .

the church (building) but the Church (establishment)

the Treaty of . . .

The Middle Ages but medieval

the Bible but bibles, biblical

Dates

c. 0000, d. 0000, A.D. 0000, 1236-39 [elide to tens, but perhaps no elision in main headings]
14 August 1996
the twelfth century, twelfth-century castles

Numbers

two, forty-five, one hundred, 148, two hundred, 3,499, five thousand [but it may be more appropriate to use figures when listing a series of values]

one-third

£3 12s. 6d., £1,500; 5 km

Abbreviations

See also those listed under “Bibliographic references,” above.

St. Dr. Mr. [give a point after a contraction]
vol. trans. repr. [give a point after a truncation]
vols. eds. [give a point after plurals of truncations]

St. – but spell out in French place-names, and use hyphen: Saint-Denis

s.a. for sub anno, “under the year,” mainly used in citing Carolingian annals.  Likewise s.v. is used for “under the word,” e.g. when citing a dictionary. Plural s.aa. and s.vv.

Quotations

No quotation marks around displayed (block) quotations, unless the quotation marks are part of the quotation.

Double quotation marks around all other quotations; single quotation marks around quotations within quotations.

Foreign-language quotations. All specific quotations must be enclosed in quotation marks (unless displayed). There is then no need for further distinction by use of italics. Put foreign-language quotations in normal type, either enclosed in quotation marks or displayed. (However, italics should be used, normally without quotation marks, for isolated single words in a foreign language, which can include single- (possibly double-) word expressions that are in general usage but that aren’t being referred to as specific quotation.)

Foreign-language phrases

The principle that short phrases in foreign languages should be italicized if not enclosed in quotations does include common phrases such as sine qua non, ex post facto, Sturm und Drang etc.  (Note that in German phrases, all nouns are capitalized.)

Other

There should be one space, not two, after the end of a sentence.  There should not be a space prior to a footnote number. Do not italicize footnote numbers.

“History,” “historic” etc. should be preceded by “a” not “an.”

When citing a series of pages from a multi-volume work, separate the volumes with a semicolon, e.g. De la Marche, Mémoires, 1:290-335; 2:64-79, 118-23, 129-35, 142-202.

Speculum Style Sheet

Speculum is a scholarly journal open to contributions in all fields studying the Middle Ages, a period ranging from 500 to 1500. The primary emphasis is on Western Europe, but Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew, and Slavic studies are also included. The language of publication is English, and submissions in other languages will not be considered.


ARTICLES

Articles may be submitted on any medieval topic. All disciplines, methodologies, and approaches are welcome. In keeping with the Academy’s goal of representing all fields of medieval studies, individual issues usually include articles on a variety of subjects, in a variety of disciplines.

Articles on interdisciplinary topics or articles that tackle large interpretative questions, undertake the synthetic analysis of major methodologies, or consider newer theoretical approaches to medieval studies are encouraged. Highly focused studies are welcome, but preference will be given to articles of interest to readers in more than one discipline and beyond the specialty in question. Authors should consider the multidisciplinary audience of Speculum, should craft their material to appeal to a large audience of medievalists, and should provide sufficient context for readers who are not already experts in the subject matter of their articles.

Translations and editions of medieval texts will be considered for publication when they are an essential part of a larger study; in such cases, the edition or translation may be included as an appendix.

Articles should present original scholarship of the highest quality. Preliminary notes on research still in progress are not acceptable, since Speculum articles should be mature pieces of work, likely to be of long-term value. Work that will soon be published in essentially the same form as part of a book should not be submitted. Articles are considered for publication on the assumption that they are not being considered for publication by another journal.

PEER-REVIEW POLICIES

Speculum follows a policy of double-blind peer review of all submissions. The author’s identity is not known to the reader evaluating the submission, and the author does not know the identity of the reader. Submissions should be accompanied by a cover page that includes the title of the article and the name and address of the author. The article should include only its title, not the name of its author. An author should avoid self-identification in the argument or documentation of the article.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Authors should submit two copies of their articles; please do not submit a disk. Illustrations should be legible photocopies, not originals; if an article is accepted, the author must supply high-quality black-and-white glossy photographs and permission to reproduce them. Authors should follow the guidelines for manuscript preparation and documentation, listed below and published in Speculum 75 (2000), 546–52.

Article submissions and editorial correspondence should be addressed to the Editor, Speculum, at the address below..

BOOK REVIEWS

Reviews are assigned by the Book Review Editor, and unsolicited reviews will not be considered. Scholars who wish to review for Speculum should apply to the Editor.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Manuscripts must be printed in 12-point type with double spacing throughout, including notes. Italic and bold fonts should be avoided (use underscoring to signal italics). Ample margins (at least one inch on all sides) should be provided; use ragged right rather than justified margins. Additional space should not be inserted routinely between paragraphs or between notes; use subheads when necessary to signal a division between sections of the text. The parts of the manuscript should be printed in the following order: text, appendices, notes. Each part should begin on a new page, and the manuscript should be paginated consecutively from start to finish. Notes should be printed as endnotes, not footnotes. Captions and illustrations should be placed at the very end.

Printouts must be proofread before submission. It is important to check for computer glitches and to make sure everything is fully legible. Special characters and accents must print clearly and unambiguously. Be sure that all pages have been photocopied properly.

Most of the prescriptions that follow are concerned with citation style. For matters not discussed here, authors should refer to The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. (Chicago, 1993). 

CITATION PRACTICE IN BRIEF

The author is responsible for the accuracy of quotations and citations, which should be verified before the manuscript is submitted.

The guiding principle for citations is maximum clarity for the reader rather than brevity. When in doubt, the author should err on the side of providing more rather than less information.

Arabic numerals are to be used for volume, part, and section numbers. This is true for journal volume numbers, for volume numbers and other subdivisions in a series, and for volume numbers in a multivolume work. It is also true for the subdivisions of classical and medieval texts.

Roman numerals are retained when the original work uses them for page numbers. They are also retained for manuscript shelfmarks, where as much as possible the usage of the library should be followed.

Primary sources

Models for the citation of classical and medieval works are the following:

1. Medieval Author, Opus 2.4.1, ed. Modern Editor (City, 1990), p. 135.

2. Medieval Author, Opus 2.4.1, ed. Editor, p. 135.

3. Medieval Author, Opus 2.4.1.

4. Medieval Author, Opus 2.4.1, line 5.

5. Medieval Author, Opus 2.4.1, p. 135.

6. Matt. 5.21; 1 Cor. 2.12.

Note 1 is a standard first citation. The subdivisions of the medieval work follow the title without intervening punctuation, in descending order, separated by periods. For example, Opus is divided into books, sections, and chapters, and the sample citation should be read as book 2, section 4, chapter 1.

Once the edition of a work has been provided in the first citation, subsequent references are shortened as in note 2, or even more as in notes 3, 4, or 5. The nature of the work and its editorial history will determine which version is required.

Note 6 shows standard biblical citations, which likewise use periods as the divider between subdivisions, in this instance between chapter and verse. If the reader might have difficulty deciphering this system as it applies to a given work, the reference should be spelled out in full.

Secondary works

Models for the citation of secondary works are the following:

7. John Doe, Book Title (City, 1995), pp. 27-31.

8. Jane Smith, “Article Title,” Journal 24 (1992), 2-14.

9. Doe, Short Title, p. 76; Smith, “Short Title,” p. 9.

The abbreviations “p.” and “pp.” are almost always used with page references to modern printed works. The most notable exception is full citations of journal articles, where the convention of providing in sequence the volume number, publication date, and page numbers is so well established that further specification is unnecessary. Provide inclusive pages rather than “f.” or “ff.”

BOOK CITATIONS

Authors’ names should be cited as they appear on the title page. Do not abbreviate given names to initials.

Publishers should be omitted; the parentheses should include only the place and date of publication (and reprint information, where applicable). If the publisher lists more than one location, it is usually sufficient to cite only the first location in the list. The conventional English form of place-names should be given (“Turin,” not “Torino”; “Munich,” not “München”), with the addition of the country or state if required (“Cambridge, Mass.,” or “Cambridge, Eng.”).

Simplest form

Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (New York, 1994), pp. 18-19, 92-93, and 118-19.

Later editions and reprints

Frank Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042-1216, 4th ed. (London, 1988), pp. 224-26.

Charles H. Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry (1925; repr. Washington, D.C., 1986), pp. 25-27.

Multiple volumes

Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Munich, 1911-31), 1:78. [The citation is to volume 1, page 78. The following citation is equally correct.] Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 1 (Munich, 1911), p. 78.

Monographs in a series

Arno Borst, Die Katharer, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica 12 (Stuttgart, 1953), pp. 112-15. [Series information is sometimes essential for locating books and ought to be included in such cases, but the editor(s) of series can usually be omitted.]

Edited or translated works

Hildegard of Bingen, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 1, trans. Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (New York, 1994), pp. 34-35. [Here the abbreviation “trans.” means “translated by” and does not change when there is more than one translator.]

Emil Friedberg, ed., Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1879-81), 2:lxiv. [Here the abbreviation “ed.” means “editor”; the plural is “eds.”]

Georges Duby, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, trans. Jane Dunnet (Chicago, 1994), pp. vii and 25.

Foreign titles

Follow the prevailing rules for the given language in the capitalization of foreign titles. In Latin titles capitalize only the first word, proper nouns, and proper adjectives. In French, Italian, and Spanish titles capitalize only the first word and proper nouns.

Titles in languages other than classical and medieval Latin and Greek, French, Italian, German, and Spanish may be translated. The translation follows the title in square brackets and is not italicized; only the first word and proper nouns and adjectives are capitalized.

Boris Por‰nev, Feodalism i narodnye massy [Feudalism and the masses] (Moscow, 1964), pp. 22-50.

Subsequent references

Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 97.

Use short titles rather than “op. cit.” Use “ibid.” only when there is a long series of notes referring to the same work, making short titles otiose.

If there is a considerable gap between the first reference and the next citation, it is a help to the reader to use this form:

Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals (see above, n. 5), p. 97.

If the work by Reynolds is cited frequently throughout the article, the first reference may include the indication “hereafter cited as Reynolds.” Then subsequent references take the form “Reynolds, p. 97.”

ARTICLES

Do not abbreviate journal titles. One of few exceptions is PMLA, where the abbreviation has become the main title of the journal.

Anna Carlotta Dionisotti, “On Bede, Grammars, and Greek,” Revue bénédictine 92 (1982), 129.

Anne Walters Robertson, “The Mass of Guillaume de Machaut in the Cathedral of Reims,” in Plainsong in the Age of Polyphony, ed. Thomas Forest Kelly, Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice 2 (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), pp. 100-139.

Robert Bourgeois, “La théorie de la connaissance intellectuelle chez Henri de Gand,” Revue de philosophie, n.s. 6 (1936), 238-59.

Subsequent references

Dionisotti, “On Bede,” p. 129.

MANUSCRIPTS

Both in the text and in the notes the abbreviation “MS” (plural “MSS”) is used only when it precedes a shelfmark. Cite the shelfmark according to the practice of the given library. Folio numbers should include a recto/verso reference, abbreviated and written on the line, not as a superscript. The abbreviation of “folio” is “fol.” (plural “fols.”).

The first, full reference to a manuscript should give the place-name, the name of the library, and the shelfmark:

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4117, fols. 108v-145r.

Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 6055, fols. 151r-228v.

Subsequent references

BnF lat. 4117, fol. 108r. [If the context allows, “lat. 4117” may be sufficient.]

Vat. lat. 6055, fol. 151r.

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WORKS, INCLUDING THE BIBLE

The system of citation used in the following examples is explained above under “Citation Practice in Brief.” For canonical collections, registers, etc., the prevailing abbreviations and style of citation should be used.

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 2.3, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), p. 142.

Prov. 2.5 [Do not italicize books of the Bible. Use a period rather than a colon between chapter and verse.]

Subsequent references

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 2.3, p. 142.

Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 12.1.59. [Page numbers of the edition are often not required.]

SERIES

Series titles and abbreviations thereof are not italicized. Many series are familiar enough to allow the use of standard abbreviations, and it is often permissible to eliminate the name of the editor and the place and date of publication. If in doubt, use the full title. The volume number and page number are separated by a colon, with no space between the elements.

PL 123:347.

MGH SS 13:229.

If the series is subdivided

MGH LL 2/1:263. [Section 2, volume 1, page 263.]

Full citation of an edited work in a series

Alcuin, Vita Willibrordi, ed. Wilhelm Levison, MGH SSrerMerov 7 (1920), pp. 113-41.

OTHER MATTERS

1. References to modern authors. The first mention of a modern author in the text should include the given name (or initials, if that is the author’s preferred form).

2. Notes. Notes should be succinct and should be confined to material necessary to support assertions in the text. They will ordinarily be printed as footnotes. However, some citations may be inserted in parentheses in the text, and in certain cases it may be preferable to use a bibliography and citations in author-date style, either in parentheses in the text or in footnotes or both. Footnotes should be avoided in reviews.

3. Abbreviations. The period should not be omitted after abbreviations. French place-names containing “Saint” are normally spelled out, and the hyphen is essential: “Saint-Denis.”

4. Italics and quotation marks. Isolated words and phrases in foreign languages should be underscored. Direct quotations of texts in foreign languages should be placed in quotation marks. Quotations longer than ten typed lines should be treated as block quotations (typed double-spaced and indented, without quotation marks).

Single quotation marks are reserved for quotations within quotations and for definitions in a linguistic context:

Estrusia might be associated with extrusis ‘pushed out, thrust forth’.

Note that punctuation is placed outside the single quotation marks used for definitions.

5. Scholarly reference words. Words and abbreviations such as “et al.,” “ibid.” “idem,” “passim,” “e.g.,” “i.e.,” and “ca.” should not be italicized. The only exception is “[sic].” Note that “cf.” means “compare” and should not be used when “see” or “see also” is the accurate expression.

6. Dates. The correct form is “1390s,” not “1390’s” or spelled out. Centuries should be spelled out; the adjectival form requires a hyphen, as in “twelfth-century manuscript.”

7. Capitalization. “Middle Ages” is capitalized, but “medieval” is not. On religious names and terms see the Chicago Manual, pp. 265-72. “Church” is generally lowercased, unless it is part of the official name of a denomination or building, or unless it refers to the universal Church. “Bible” is capitalized, but “biblical” is not.

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