About DigiKAR and this documentation
The geohumanities project DigiKAR (Digitale Kartenwerkstatt Altes Reich - Digital Map Lab Holy Roman Empire) was a collaboration between the Leibniz Institute for European History in Mainz (IEG), the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig (IfL), the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg (IOS), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France (EHESS).
The project addressed issues of fragmentation, interconnection, plurality, and competition among spatial structures in the early modern Holy Roman Empire. Based on case studies examining the Electorates of Mainz and Saxony, the Digital Map Lab developed alternative approaches to capturing, processing, and representing ambiguous spatial configurations and practices. Thus, DigiKAR has made a general contribution to historical research on the Holy Roman Empire as a space of shared and overlapping sovereignty. It also developed innovative concepts and best practices for collecting, modeling, and visualizing spatial historical data that can be transferred to other research areas.
The project was funded for three years (2021–2024), with an extension to 2025, by the “Leibniz Cooperative Excellence” program of the Leibniz Association.
This documentation gives an insight into data and data queries in the DigiKAR project. The work package “Electoral Saxony” focuses on spatial structuring via rulers’ rights, while the work package “Electoral Mainz” records the mobility of officials via biographical events. Explanations of the data structure and the research questions are documented exclusively in English, the short descriptions of the scripts and their use cases are available in German, English and French. In addition to the short descriptions, blogposts and videos (German and/or English) explaining the processes are linked.
If you want to find out more about DigiKAR, you are welcome to visit our website and to download the full conference presentation, containing the displayed slides. Please also make use of our prototype visualizations and our bibliography containing presentations and publications by the project team members.
Please note that the project has ended in 2025 and that this documentation as well as the DigiKAR Prototype Vizualisations and our project website are not updated. The Prototype Visualizations website is undergoing regular maintenance, which may cause occasional temporary unavailability.
Contact
DigiKAR was coordinated by the Leibniz Institute of European History. Please contact the team members at the institute’s DH Lab digital@ieg-mainz.de with any questions you may have about the project. The DH Lab coordinates the development and expansion of digital research infrastructures operated or used by the IEG and manages the digital research collections and services offered by IEG digital.
Responsible for content of this website
Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG) - Leibniz Institute of European History
Represented by its scientific directors Prof. Dr. Nicole Reinhardt and Prof. Dr. Johannes Paulmann
Address: Alte Universitätsstraße 19, 55116 Mainz, Germany
Phone: +49 6131 39 39340
Email: info@ieg-mainz.de
Supervisory authority: Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Science, Continuing Education, and Health, Mittlere Bleiche 61, 55116 Mainz
Further information on the project
The project “Digital Map Lab Holy Roman Empire” developed and tested concepts for collecting, modeling, and visualizing early modern geographic data from the Holy Roman Empire, particularly from the 17th and 18th centuries. Unlike previous historical cartography approaches, this project considered the incompleteness and ambiguity of analog and digitized sources (“messy data”) and provided alternative perspectives for analyzing place-related practices in the early modern period. Geoinformation technology and science offered possibilities beyond the creation of digital maps; they also enabled database-supported analysis and visualization of spatially referenced data.
The interdisciplinary research group, consisting of historians, geographers, and information scientists, examined two case studies from different geographic regions and political entities of the Holy Roman Empire: the Electorates of Mainz and Saxony. The case studies aimed to model location-based spatial constructions, as well as historical mobility and interconnectedness phenomena, to develop data standards for similar projects.
The goal of the case studies was to model place-based spatial constructions, as well as historical mobility and interconnectedness, in order to develop data standards for similar projects. By prototypically visualizing mobility as well as spaces of competing rule within the Holy Roman Empire, the project addressed key challenges for traditional historiography and digital historical cartography. The diverse boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire and its territories, which were not exclusively political and were often contested, were examined as integral components of early modern spheres of action in this project.
The Digital Map Lab challenged existing visual representations of spaces that cannot be adequately captured by line- and polygon-oriented maps. Instead, these spaces require multimodal and multiperspectival visualizations. This approach aligns with recent studies on spatial analysis. Current developments in cartographic semiotics, data modeling, and non-cartographic visualization are integrated into our workflows that we make available to other researchers in the field. For this reason, the DigiKAR team was committed to building a close-knit community for open exchange and mutual knowledge transfer throughout the entire project phase with other research projects and institutions facing similar challenges.