The digital edition of Portuguese medieval municipal charters with the support of a collaborative editing system in a database

Abstract

The article addresses the need for a research plan for the digital edition of Portuguese medieval municipal charters, highlighting three essential requirements. Firstly, it emphasizes the importance of establishing a cohesive textual corpus, consistently highlighting gaps and interpretative challenges. Secondly, it underscores the need for methodologies and interdisciplinary collaboration, given the complexity of these documents that require contributions from areas such as History, Diplomacy, Paleography, and Linguistics. Finally, it highlights the importance of digital tools for data collection and the dissemination of digital editions in an open format. The corpus presents challenges such as the interdependence between documents and the existence of various versions of charters produced over the centuries.

Within the iForal project, Portuguese Medieval Charters: a historical and linguistic perspective in the digital age, approximately 180 charters were identified, comprising around 400 surviving testimonies. The majority of these testimonies are in Latin, posing a linguistic challenge. A Collaborative Digital Editing System (EDICOLAB) was developed, including an editing module for collaborative work among editors and a visualization module for the public. It is a web-based application that allows users without XML markup training to contribute to electronic editing with differentiated interventions, such as transcription correction or the addition of comments.