Goals of early hypertext systems

The notion of a singular document relating to other documents is ancient. Religious texts across cultures have included and attracted annotations, texts providing discussion and commentary on holy scriptures. Roman jurists referenced other legal decisions and precedents precisely, though other Roman authors only rarely referenced the authors, and less frequently the titles, of works on which they based their texts. More typically they quoted passages from memory, often introducing a slight change to show this. Later, in the 12th century schools that evolved into universities, medieval scholars developed precise and standardized reference forms. The modern footnote, distinct from annotation and citation, can be traced back to at least 1696, and the publication of “Historical and Critical Dictionary” by Pierre Bayle, an ambitious volume that sought to document all errors and omissions in existing historical reference books. By the middle of the 20th century, the practice of documents containing footnotes, as well as annotating and citing other documents, was common in most branches of academia.