Schriftpassages

Schriftpassages is a term used in philology and paleography to designate carefully selected textual passages drawn from historical manuscripts and early printed books. These passages are analyzed to study script features, orthography, scribal practices, and textual variants. In scholarly practice, Schriftpassages serve both as data for philological research and as teaching examples.

Originating from the German words Schrift (script, writing) and Passagen (passages), the expression is most common in German-language scholarship. In English-language discourse the term is rarely standardized; scholars may translate it as "script passages" or treat it as a generic "textual passage" used for manuscript analysis.

Schriftpassages are used to illustrate particular paleographic features such as letter forms, ligatures, abbreviations, and marginalia, or to document variations in spelling and wording across a manuscript tradition. They help in dating manuscripts, identifying scribal hands, and assessing transmission history. They are often curated in digital editions or palaeographic databases.

Researchers select passages that are representative or particularly informative, annotate them with palaeographic notes, and encode them with textual criticism data. In digital humanities, Schriftpassages are linked to manuscript folia, transcription layers, and TEI/XML annotations to enable search, comparison, and visualization.

Limitations include selection bias, fragmentary manuscript evidence, and transcription uncertainties. Examples of use range from medieval Latin manuscripts to early modern German print cultures, where scholars compare script styles and orthographic conventions across regions and periods. See also paleography, textual criticism, codicology, and TEI.