Participation at the conference “The Potential of Prosopography for Historical and Art Historical Studies on the Charterhouses and the Carthusian Order”

On August 23-25 our team member Daniel Luger participated in the conference “”The Potential of Prosopography for Historical and Art Historical Studies on the Charterhouses and the Carthusian Order” at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) in Ljubljana.

Prosopography is a major methodological tool which can significantly enhance our socio-historical understanding of medieval institutions, particularly of religious orders. Moreover, as numerous studies of monastic orders have accumulated data of a prosopographical nature, prosopographical approaches are also eminently feasible. This data has, however, not always been systematically collected, is often not structured and is of variable accessibility to the scientific community. No comprehensive prosopographical study has actually been undertaken to date, as some recent thought-provoking studies have pointed out. What’s more, prosopographical research is crucial not only for historiography but also for many other disciplines – in particular for art historical studies of religious orders, as understanding of social networks is vital for research on the background and the context of the commissioning of individual artworks. The material for the Carthusian order as an example is no less diverse and heterogenous than for other orders, but it can constitute a good testing ground for the use of the prosopographic method, as the order was characterized by a remarkable centralization and organizational consistency from the 12th to the 18th centuries.

Daniel Luger’s presentation was entitled “New Sources and Methods for Prosopographical Studies of the Carthusian Order – The ERC Advanced Grant Project “From Digital to Distant Diplomatics””.
In his presentation he explained the importance of the project “From Digital to Distant Diplomatics”, which is currently running at the University of Graz, for the study of the Carthusian Order in the Middle Ages by means of concrete examples (see presentation slides). This project has set itself the goal of making the almost unmanageable wealth of late medieval documents more quickly and comprehensively usable for medieval studies with the help of modern digital methods such as automated manuscript recognition (HTR), machine learning or computer vision.