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{{Paper
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|title=Germania Sacra Online - The Research Portal of Clerics and Religious Institutions before 1810
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1399/paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-1399
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bd/KrogerP15
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==Germania Sacra Online - The Research Portal of Clerics and Religious Institutions before 1810==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1399/paper2.pdf
Germania Sacra Online – The Research Portal of Clerics and
Religious Institutions before 1810
Bärbel Kröger, Christian Popp
Germania Sacra, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Theaterstraße 7, D-37073 Göttingen
Email: bkroege@gwdg.de, cpopp@gwdg.de
Abstract
The research project Germania Sacra provides a comprehensive prosopographical database, that makes structured and
comparable data of the Church of the Holy Roman Empire available for further research. The database contains approximately
31,000 records of premodern persons, new data is continuously added. This digital index of persons is supplemented by the
"Database of Monasteries, Convents and Collegiate Churches of the Old Empire". The access through ecclesiastical institutions
offers a broad variety of visualization possibilities for the prosopographical data. Together with the digitized reference books of
the Germania Sacra those databases constitute a research portal of clerics and religious institutions, which takes into
consideration the enormous importance of the Church for the history of the Holy Roman Empire. In order to make as much
information as possible accessible for scholarly use the next steps that will be undertaken are cross-institutional collaboration
and integration of scientific data resources of other research projects.
Keywords: Prosopography, Church of the Holy Roman Empire, Linked Data, Authority files, Cross-database query,
Monasteries
Given that the research project Germania Sacra was
1. Introduction founded 100 years ago, one wonders if the founding
Within Europe, the Germania Sacra is a unique research fathers were aware of the sheer mass of material and the
project that deals with the history of dioceses, necessary human and financial resources needed to cope
monasteries, convents and collegiate churches in the Holy with such a project. We can assume they were. 1 As part of
Roman Empire of the German Nation. The clerical the scientific community during the late 19th and early
institutions included date from late antiquity until the 20th century, these scholars were influenced by the
Reformation or, respectively, the secularization at the widespread optimism and positivism in regard to
beginning of the 19th century. Geographically, research ambitious research projects in the field of the humanities.
includes the present Federal Republic of Germany and the Seemingly, they believed that they could manage this
border regions of neighboring countries. enormous task.
The aim of the project is to present the source material of Today, about four generations later, the assessment is
the respective archives in a way that makes structured and much more sober. Germania Sacra has existed for almost
comparable data of the Church of the Holy Roman Empire 100 years, during this time 72 reference books have been
available for further research. A key component of this is published. This, of course, means that only a small
the prosopography; specifically an inventory of clerical amount of the archival material of the religious
members of the Roman Empire, not just by name, but institutions and clerics has been reviewed. Consequently,
with all the essential information that can be collected the vision of the founding fathers appears to be an
from local archives and from Vatican sources. Contained illusion. At present the Union of the German Academies
within the reference books published by Germania Sacra of Sciences and Humanities, which funds Germania Sacra
are short biographies of the clerics in each of the studied since 2008, offers the most comprehensive humanities
institutions. Thus, Germania Sacra provides biographical research programme in Germany and supports long-term
lists of the bishops of a diocese, the canons or canonesses basic research projects. Nonetheless resources are
of individual collegiate churches, the monks and nuns of restricted. Like all other research projects Germania Sacra
numerous monasteries etc.
1
"Woher die erforderlichen Mittel nehmen und, wenn diese
According to current research which considers vorhanden gewesen wären, wo die unentbehrlichen
zahlreichen Mitarbeiter und Hilfskräfte finden und in eine
approximately a thousand years of church history – from Organisation auf so weite Sicht, für zwei oder gar für drei
the Roman Empire to the secularization – about 10,000 Generationen, einordnen? … So ist es gekommen, daß,
monasteries and convents existed. If we assume that an sobald wir die ersten Grundlagen für Germania pontificia
average institution over time had approximately 500 geschaffen hatten und sahen, daß allen Propheten zum Trotz
clerical staff members, this means we are discussing dieser Versuch gelingen werde, wir daran gingen, die
millions of individuals. Vorbereitungen für die Germania sacra zu treffen."
Preamble of the first volume of Germania Sacra by Paul
Fridolin Kehr, in: Abb & Wentz, 1929, pp. VII–VIII.
8
had to provide a precise and realistic concept and to developing resource with new data continuously added
develop short-term objectives. The aim to collect and (approximately 1,500 records, May 2015). All digital
publish all the prosopographic data of the Church of the resources are linked with each other, allowing access
Holy Roman Empire does not seem to be realistic through a variety of search options and browsing
anymore. However the digital revolution might indeed functions.
give us another chance.
In order to enable a deeper examination of the
2. Building a research portal prosopographical information found in Germania Sacra
New technologies lead to new possibilities; the volumes, we have compiled a digital index of persons
networking opportunities in the digital world breathe new who appear in the published reference books. This has led
life into the vision of a comprehensive prosopographical to a scholarly database which provides comprehensive
overview of the Church of the Roman Empire. Today, we information about the clerics of the Church of the Holy
are much more involved with the scientific community, Roman Empire and other individuals associated with
and it is much easier to work collaboratively on the clerical institutions. Currently, the database comprises
collection of research data. We can easily make use of approximately 150,000 entries, 31,000 of them already
research results that have emerged in quite different available on the public version of the database. The
contexts, collating a variety of types of research material. "Digital Index of Persons" provides targeted access to the
Ultimately, we will be able to publish research results biographical and prosopographical information in the
much faster and with less effort, reaching a larger reference books. For this purpose, the complex
audience than we ever could through traditional printed hierarchical structure of the index entries of the printed
monographs. This also helps us to integrate more external reference books was transferred into a relational database.
researchers into the process than ever before. As a result, queries for individuals can be made via a
variety of search options: name, surname and its variants,
personal data, including office data, institutional
Consequently, Germania Sacra has created a broad
affiliations, and geographic impact areas. The
portfolio of digital resources in the field of the Church of
identification and merging of data sets of identical persons
the Holy Roman Empire in recent years. The key facility
has been done manually so far and is mainly undertaken
of the online portal is a scholarly "Digital Index of
for high ranking church and secular officials (such as
Persons" with a focus on clerics. Another primary feature
bishops and abbots).
is constituted by the digitized reference books concerning
the history of ecclesiastical institutions compiled in the
context of the long-term project which began in 1917. A The extensive amount of data contained in the
"Database of Monasteries, Convents and Collegiate prosopographical database of Germania Sacra enables
Churches of the Old Empire" was recently released. All reliable statistical and empirical studies that were – based
digital offerings of Germania Sacra are works-in-progress; solely on the monographic publications – formerly not
new volumes will be made available 3 years after their possible to this extent. Plurality of benefices and offices or
publication. The biographical database is continuously family and social networks of church officials can be
updated. Currently, it contains approximately 31,000 reconstructed and visualized much more easily by using
records (May 2015). Similarly, the monastic database is a the data pool. By combining various search criteria,
9 Fig. 1: Database query for Benedictine bishops.
correlations can be uncovered which go beyond the has already been implemented in the research portal of
information provided in the printed reference books. Germania Sacra and achieves more relevance through our
Fig. 1 for example shows the result of a query for rapidly growing databases.
Benedictine bishops.
3. Collaboration and integration of data
Alternative forms of access and a broad variety of In order to realize the vision of a comprehensive
visualization possibilities for the prosopographical data prosopographical database, the preparation and
are made possible by access through the ecclesiastical presentation of the Germania Sacra project data achieves
institutions. For this purpose, we recently released the only the first step; additionally, cross-institutional
"Database of Monasteries, Convents and Collegiate collaboration and integration of scientific data of other
Churches of the Old Empire". Through the monastic research projects are essential.
database, it is easy to get an overview of the abbots of a
particular monastery or the abbesses of a particular group
An important building block for reliable networking is the
of monasteries from the same order in a particular region.
systematic enrichment with authoritative data. For names
of persons in German speaking countries, the authority
All query results can be displayed on interactive maps that file GND (Gemeinsame Normdatei) of the German
visualize the monastic landscape of the medieval and National Library is particularly relevant. 2 Automatic
early modern periods. Temporal aspects as well as generation of links to external data sources by using GND
regional criteria such as medieval dioceses or religious has become an established standard for a large number of
orders can be modified by the user. In fig. 2 you can see scholarly biographical and prosopographical databases.
for instance the screenshot of a map based query result for For the Germania Sacra Portal, we utilize this authority
all collegiate churches in the medieval diocese of file to enrich our data and connect it to external web
Halberstadt. Our research data has been used by scholars sources via automated links. Besides from other
already, leading to new insights into several research biographical databases especially library catalogs,
questions (e.g. Röckelein, 2015). inventory overviews of archives, editions of sources,
Fig. 2: Map based query for collegiate churches in the diocese of Halberstadt.
The entries of religious houses in this database are linked bibliographies and portrait collections are relevant
to those clerics associated with the respective religious sources.
houses that appear in Germania Sacra’s prosopographical
database. For all institutions and individuals, the datasets
provide interactive links which lead directly to the 2
In an international context the Virtual International Authority
corresponding pages in digitized Germania Sacra File (VIAF) gives access to the national authority files like
reference books. Presentation and internal linking of data GND (http://viaf.org).
10
In addition to authoritative data for personal names, we Suggestions can be recorded and, thus, improve the data
enrich our records with authoritative data for corporate pool of all partners involved.
bodies such as monasteries, orders and dioceses as well as
geographic entities (GeoNames). In order to make 4. Conclusion: Digital strategy
structured access to our data available, entries in
Through the use of digital tools, the vision of the founding
Wikipedia and DBpedia, 3 the biggest player in the linked fathers of Germania Sacra, to provide comprehensive and
data cloud, are referenced. The records of the monastic reliable statistical prosopographical data for further
database are already available in Linked Data format. research, appears achievable at last. In summary, the
Data enrichment and semantic web technologies offer a following five points represent our digital strategy:
high potential for condensing the information network of
the relations of persons and clerical institutions for
medieval and early modern times. a) The canonization of material produced by a number of
scholars doing research for Germania Sacra leads to a
comprehensive, structured, and solid data pool, while at
Automated linking of individuals mentioned in scholarly
the same time ensuring access to written sources.
databases of medieval and early modern times is,
nevertheless, a largely unsolved problem in the field of
digital humanities. One reason is that most of these b) Using targeted search functions and different forms of
individuals are not recorded in authority files. This visualization ensures a user-friendly presentation of data.
situation is most likely not going to change in the near Information can be found much more easily.
future. For many individuals, we simply don’t have
enough data to provide reliable authentication (date of c) Integration in an institutional repository with the aim to
birth and death, offices and official data). The achieve sustainable use and long-term availability of
identification process is often complicated by name research data. For the Germania Sacra Portal, we use a
variations, translation and transcription errors, Latinized DINI-certified DSpace repository that has been developed
forms and the late-onset use of surnames. by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
There are a number of historical databases that are of d) Semi-automatic enrichment with authoritative data
interest for the prosopography of the Church of the Holy increases the value of the data pool. It provides a basis for
Roman Empire. 4 These provide biographical information automated linking to external online resources. The
about clerics of medieval and early modern times, and Germania Sacra contributes to the improvement of the
information about educational careers or benefice authority files of the German National Library (GND) and
systems. Integrating that data by means of automatic the CERL Thesaurus and of the semantic web.
mapping has proved difficult and often the identification
of individuals remains hypothetic. e) Germania Sacra together with its partners develops
innovative technical solutions for the complex issue of
A pioneering contribution to completing this complex task linking heterogeneous data sets of premodern people. The
is provided by an international cross-institutional project. result will be a user-friendly cross-database search tool. It
Germania Sacra, together with the German Historical will interlink extant scholarly prosopographical infor-
Institute in Rome (DHI) 5 and the Repertorium mation and help generate and share this knowledge.
Academicum Germanicum (RAG) 6 is developing a cross-
database query. We are developing technical solutions – 5. URLs
for example the integration of algorithms or the use of Homepage Germania Sacra:
thesauri – to enhance the search for phonetic and http://www.germania-sacra.de
orthographic name variants as well as Latinized names.
We are going to provide an interactive system, which on Digital Index of Persons:
the one hand, gives qualified identifying suggestions to http://personendatenbank.germania-sacra.de
the user. On the other hand, researchers are invited to
make their own suggestions concerning the identification Database of Monasteries, Convents and Collegiate
process of matching individuals to particular records. Churches of the Old Empire:
http://klosterdatenbank.germania-sacra.de
3
DBpedia extracts information from Wikipedia resources and
allows users to semantically query the data, including related 6. References
datasets (http://dbpedia.org).
4 Abb, G., Wentz, G. (1929). Germania Sacra A. F. Abt. 1:
For a detailed overview of historical-biographical online
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See also: Historisch-biographische Informationsmittel, erstellt Bistum Brandenburg 1. Berlin: de Gruyter.
und bearbeitet von Bernhard Ebneth, http://www.ndb.badw- Bradley, J., Short, H. (2005). Texts into Databases: The
muenchen.de/eb_www.htm. Evolving Field of New-style Prosopography. Literary
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http://www.romana-repertoria.net/. and Linguistic Computing, 20, pp. 3–24.
6
http://www.rag-online.org/.
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Mathisen, R.W. (2007). Where are all the PDBs? The
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12