Author Guidelines

Article length

The length of final articles should be ca. 6000 words, but longer articles will be taken into consideration.

Article title

The main title should be straightforwardly descriptive so that it represents the content clearly to booksellers, librarians and users of computerized catalogues.

Abstract

Authors should provide an abstract of their articles with keywords highlighted in bold type. The abstract should not exceed 150 words.

Layout

The text uses a 12-point font and employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses). The entire text should be double‐spaced (including footnotes, quotations and bibliography). Paragraphing should be indicated with a single indentation but without an extra space between paragraphs. 

Spelling 

Authors should adopt British spelling conventions (except in quotations from other sources, where the spelling convention of the original should be retained). In British style either ‐ise or ‐ize may be used, but one form should be used throughout. Italics should be used for foreign words (except proper names) although commonly used terms such as elite, role, regime should not be italicized.

Punctuation

Punctuation systems should follow British conventions (except in quotations from other sources, where the punctuation convention of the original should be retained). British style uses single inverted commas, except for quotations within quotations (which have double inverted commas). Punctuation should follow closing inverted commas except for grammatically complete sentences beginning with a capital.

Capitals

The use of capitals should be kept to a minimum and should be used consistently. Lower‐case is preferred for e.g. 'medieval', 'western Europe', ‘biblical’. However, capitals must be used for nouns and adjectives denoting cultural, philosophical, literary, critical and artistic movements and periods e.g. Christian, Freudian, Platonism.

Contractions, abbreviations and acronyms

No full stops are used in abbreviations (e.g. Mr, St, edn, USA), though abbreviated words, which do not end with their final letter, and their plural forms, will (e.g. vol., vols., ed., eds.). In American style contractions should have a period (Mr., St.), as should abbreviations in both singular and plural forms (vol., vols., ed., eds.). Acronyms and abbreviations in capitals should have no full stops: NATO, USA, EU, BC.

Numbers

Numbers should be written out up to 100, except in a series of numbers or a discussion that includes a mixture of numbers above and below this, in which case all of them should be in figures (e.g. 356 walkers overtook 72 others, as 6 fell back, exhausted). Numbers with units and percentages should always be given in figures, with a space between the number and the unit (e.g. 4 cm). Commas should be used in numbers over 999.

Dates

Dates should be written in the form: 20 December 1148; 20 December; AD 245‐ Centuries should be written out (twenty‐first century) and 1920s etc. should be written without an apostrophe.

Quotations

Quotations of more than about forty words should be set off from the main text (indented with extra space above and below) but without quotation marks. Those of fewer than forty words should run on in the text inside single inverted commas. A quotation within a quotation uses double inverted commas. Three dots within square brackets are used to indicate an ellipsis in a quotation. […] All quotations should be typed in double‐

Notes and bibliography

To be eligible for publication, submitted articles should conform precisely to the conventions of the Chicago Style Guide, Notes and Bibliography (NB). Notes should generally be kept brief and are included within the word‐ A source should be given a full reference the first time it is cited in the notes. We encourage to enrich texts with URL’s and DOI’s.

Illustrations, figures and tables

All illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.