Medieval Memoria Online (MeMO)
Applicant: Dr Truus van Bueren
Researchers: Dr Truus van Bueren, Rolf de Weijert MA
Duration: May 2009 – February 2013
Funding: NWO - Investeringen middelgroot
Website: http://memo.hum.uu.nl
The Medieval Memoria Online (MeMO) project facilitates a new approach for researching the medieval culture of remembrance (memoria). It enables an interdisciplinary investigation in which case studies are combined with a comparative analysis of large amounts of source materials, including objects and texts. This objective is achieved by making available on the Internet an information system containing databases with inventories and descriptions of sources that are fundamental to the study of memoria. These sources are:
- memorial registers
- narrative sources regarding memoria
- memorial paintings and sculptures (Memorialbilder)
- sepulchral monuments and gravestones.
In addition to the four types of memoria sources, the MeMO research infrastructure will also provide basic information on the so-called miscellanies, manuscripts containing various (memorial) texts, and on the institutions from which the sources originate. Photographs of the objects, full-text scans of published editions of the texts, links to related websites, and a website containing a newsletter and electronic forum will also be included. The data in the MeMO research infrastructure will cover the present-day Netherlands from the 12th through the late 16th century.
Memoria research
Research on the medieval culture of remembrance considers memoria a public affair, involving religious, social, historical and political aspects. It does not solely comprise the care for the souls of (deceased) persons, but also the commemoration of their actions, for instance founding religious institutions and obtaining and safeguarding rights, privileges and financial resources. Through the written word, rituals and objects memoria, therefore, played a key role in all social layers of medieval society. It was fundamental to the creation and expression of the identity of communities and individuals. Accordingly, this complex and dynamic phenomenon deserves, requires even, an interdisciplinary approach.
New approach
To date, research on medieval memoria has dealt primarily with one of the aforementioned source types, largely focusing on case studies. This is due to the fact that presently researchers have no overview of the materials and research possibilities at hand. In many cases, research on the sources themselves will remain necessary. However, by providing a research tool with detailed information on these materials, MeMO meets the international scholars' need for interdisciplinary and broad comparative study of memoria related materials.
MeMO facilitates quantitative and comparative studies within a complex of closely related research questions. The overall question is twofold: first, in which ways was memoria an agent in both the creation and expression of identity in communities of the Middle Ages, such as religious orders, parishes, confraternities and families, and second, how did the creation and expression of memoria vary between these communities and over time? Although MeMO is being developed to make possible a new approach to memoria research, the materials presented can also be used by researchers outside the field of memoria, including the substantial group of researchers looking into genealogy, family history and heraldry.
Research infrastructure
The MeMO application will be user-friendly and platform-independent. Because the conditions are specified step by step, the users gain an overview of the materials relevant to their research. The sustainability of the research infrastructure is strengthened through the use of internationally accepted open standards for data exchange (in XML format), expressing semantics, incorporating already existing digital resources relevant for memoria research and the creation of open source software tools to enable the analysis of the memoria sources. To further enhance the exchangeability and interoperability of the research infrastructure, a platform-independent international description standard (MeMO DS) will be created and edited by a committee of internationally renowned scholars on the subject. The future re-use and extensibility of the data created during the MeMO project, as well as interoperability with related systems, are important features of the research infrastructure created by this project.
Partners
The MeMO project is an initiative of researchers from three universities: Utrecht University, University of Groningen and VU University, Amsterdam. In order to build the web application, we plan to work together with Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS). Several institutions for cultural heritage also participate in the project: the National Service for Archaeology, Cultural Landscape and Built Heritage (RACM) in Amersfoort; the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague; the Foundation for Ecclesiastical Art and Artefacts Netherlands (Stichting Kerkelijk Kunstbezit Nederland; SKKN) in Utrecht; and the Central Bureau for Genealogy (CBG), The Hague.