Welcome to the inaugural newsletter for the Atlas of a Medieval Life project at UT Austin! The idea for a newsletter came from one of the wonderful students of this semester’s Digital Research Lab course—and turns out, they’re not the only one who wanted a way to stay up-to-date with the project’s progress!

We have lots of work to do to keep the wheels of this project turning, so these updates may not be frequent. But already, the idea of having something to show you all periodically is quite motivating!

So, what have we been up to lately?

Heralds, grab those trumpets! Announcing…

Our shiny new website! Check it out at atlasofamedievallife.org. Moving off of the University’s blog service and onto different hosting will allow us greater flexibility with the site’s code and features—including the ability to embed rich multi-media material, and create a searchable database (or, “atlas”?) of documents, people, and places. Many of those features are still to come, so stay tuned!

British Library, Royal 3 D VI, fol. 234r

Digital Research Lab: Medieval 2, Electric Boogaloo

We just wrapped another great semester of E 388M, Digital Research Lab: Medieval. Huuuuuge shout out to our students this semester for their creativity, their fearlessness in the face of brand-new material, and their willingness to help each other.

This semester, folks worked on database taxonomies, document & document source descriptions, network-oriented blog posts highlighting key people of interest from our dataset, and finding ways to make engaging itineraries using StoryMaps (more on that later!)

We had the coolest classroom(s)!

One challenge with this iteration of the course is that Liz is no longer in Texas! She moved to Washington in September after finishing her degree (hooray!) meaning she couldn’t physically be in class twice a week (not hooray!)

However, thanks to the fabulous Karina Sánchez, Gina Bastone, and Allyssa Guzman at the PCL, we were able to make use of the brand-new Scholars Lab space that opened this year! It has project rooms and a big computer lab (among other great features and work spaces), each of which has built-in video conferencing capabilities, meaning Liz was able to Zoom in to class almost seamlessly!

Scholar’s Lab project rooms—we were number 4!

If any of you are at UT but haven’t seen the Scholars Lab yet, it’s very much worth checking out! While you’re there, you miiiight see some of our work from the semester featured on the screens.

Clawing out of the data processing pit

Those of you who haven’t heard from us in a while will be pleased to know that in anticipation of the class this semester, we finished 99.999% of our data processing! We’ve tagged the people and places in all 360 handlist documents + the many hundreds of Hereford Cathedral Muniments documents that span 1275-1361. We laboriously cleaned and double-checked all that data, and now….

We can use it! The network data is ready to rock—we’ve started doing some visualizations and statistical analyses, but much more to be done there in the coming months. Here’s a little teaser of the People-Document network:

Our network of people (pink) and documents (green)! Roger is riiiiiight there. That other super isolated "person” to the left of him is the dean & chapter of Hereford

We’re still putting the finishing touches on the Place data—it’s not easy tracking down the modern locations of obscure medieval town names!—but will be mapping in no time.

Roger’s Itinerary

Over the last several semesters, we’ve been experimenting with ways to bring the “itinerary” genre of scholarship into the digital space in a way that takes advantage of all that has to offer. We needed a way to combine the core function of an itinerary—to communicate the subject’s location at a particular date—with more visual and narrative elements than typically found in an itinerary.

Enter ArcGIS StoryMaps! Students last fall and this spring semester experimented with ways of using StoryMaps to make engaging itineraries for Phases 3 & 4 of Roger’s life, with great results! This upcoming fall, we’ll be refining the format of these story maps and knocking out maps for the rest of the phases.

Snippet from one of the initial prototype story maps

Feature Corner

In every newsletter, we’ll highlight a person, place, and document from our dataset.

Document RBLR 1301

On January 19 1313, Roger is appointed to Monnington-on-Wye. This document is important as Roger de Breynton’s first benefice, regardless; but its interest is much increased due to his patron, Dame Katherine (née Giffard) d’Audley—aka “Saint” Katherine of Ledbury, who later in 1313 will become Recluse of Ledbury, afterward living for 14+ years as an anchoress.

Bartholomew le Spicer

Bartholomew le Spicer, apothecary, citizen of Hereford, Breinton-area property owner, and sometime bailiff. He comes from a whole family of apothecaries— Walter (his father) and Roger (his brother) le Spicer are variously called “medicus”, “barbour” [surgeon], or “leche” [leech] in the documentary record. He and his wife, Alice, appear frequently as a neighbor to Breinton-area property holders. Bartholomew le Spicer is principal in three lands deals in Chirchebreynton and Prestheye, two in which he grants lands to Roger de Breynton and another in which he grants lands to Roger’s brother William de Breynton, and Margery his sister. Bartholomew is identified in HCM 93 as “then bailiff of the prior of St Guthlac’s”, and in HCM 111 as “then bailiff of the Chapter”, which helps explain his frequent appearance in HCM witness lists.

Apothecary Shop (London, British Library, Codex Sloane 1977 f. 49v)

Wigmore Castle

Roger, during his time in Adam Orleton’s familia, stayed on multiple occasions in Wigmore Castle to the north of Hereford, near the Welsh border. Wigmore was held by Baron Roger Mortimer (1287-1330) from 1304-1330, but had served as family seat since soon after the Norman Conquest. It saw major rebuilding and fortification in late 13^th /early 14^th century. In 1328, following the deposition and murder of Edward II, Mortimer hosted a tournament here, attended by young Edward III and notables from across the realm, to mark his appointment as Earl of March. After his execution following a coup in 1330, Wigmore Castle and other Mortimer lands were seized by the crown (but re-acquired by a grandson, another Roger Mortimer, in 1342).

Wigmore Castle today

Wigmore Castle as it may have appeared in the early 14th century

Where are you now?

We’d love to hear from project alumni about what you’re up to now! Email Dan and/or Liz with an update (and if you’re cool with it, we’d love to highlight the cool things you’re up to in our next newsletter).

birkholz@austin.utexas.edu / lfischer@utexas.edu 

Also, if you’re a project alumn who is not in the Team section of the website and would like to be, or you would like any part of your bio there changed, let us know!