Such a steed eats wipes. About Tables of Contents in German-language Prints of the 15th and 16th Centuries

The following paper deals with the production and editing of tables of contents in early German letterpress printing. Taking into account all digitally available incunable editions published by Anton Sorg in Augsburg allows us to make profound statements on the occurrence, structure and typographical design of these indexes. Interestingly, the listed table sections often do not correspond with the wording of the respective chapter headings. Starting from this observation, the range of paratextual variation is explored using two medical texts from the Sorg corpus. On the basis of 18 prints on equine medicine, it is finally examined to what extent linguistic referencing developed during the 16th century. The investigation comes to the conclusion that the two main functions of tables of contents, namely physical orientation within the book and mental orientation about the book's contents, were not necessarily understood as a coherent unit yet. Printer-specific approaches, chronological tendencies and styles for certain text types hardly seemed to exist at all.