The Application of XML in Philological Research

The article advocates the use of XML in the description of documents intended to be objects of further philological research. In the first part of the article, the tools of document description and visualisation are briefly explained. The focus of the study is a detailed discussion of a presentation by David Birnbaum given at the 13th International Congress of Slavists in Ljubljana in 2003. The example demonstrates the application of XML in text analysis: the computer-assisted comparison and collation of elements of medieval manuscripts are meant to prove the almost inexhaustible potential of XML-formatted files in the philological research of old manuscripts.