The determining criterion for including an author in the database is that the medieval scholar produced a commentary, evidence for which may be either its survival in an extant manuscript or printed edition, the historical reference to such a work in bibliographical sources such as John Bale's Catalogus or John Leland's Collectanea , its citation by the author or another reader, or its inclusion in early library catalogues. Historical references to assignments as lecturers on Aristotle or the Sentences will not qualify an individual for inclusion, although for those qualifying on textual grounds, such information will be included in the 'Teaching' category of the database. I have preferred to leave fields blank unless historical data are available. In general, dates have been specified only when the evidence is meaningful. I have not, for example, entered a general flourishing date for all records, because this would obscure the more precise dates where they are available.
Similar considerations apply to location fields.
A blank field indicates the need for further work. All records contain a comments field near the bottom of the record. This field stores abbreviated bibliographical references used to create the record. Extended bibliographical information may be found in the Bibliography file for the commentator. In general, I have attempted to convert geographical locations to their modern counterparts, at least at the country level.