Reinterpreting space: mapping people and relationships in late medieval and early modern English cities using GIS

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are becoming increasingly popular in historical research, especially in urban contexts. However, digitizing historical sources in a way that can be mapped using the Cartesian co-ordinate systems of a GIS is often challenging, especially so in the case of records pre-dating centralized property registers or street numbering. This article explores how the vernacular spatial descriptions used in several case-studies of documents from late medieval and early modern London can be translated and geocoded into GIS compatible co-ordinates in a sympathetic way. Translating this data from a historical spatial paradigm into a modern one unlocks a whole range of new insights into spatial patterns, networks and relationships which would not have been feasible to construct using traditional methods</jats:p>

A Visualization Tool for 1790s Charleston: Locating an Enslaved Population Using GIS

“…On the whole, spatial analysis of early modern urban case studies requires greater adaptability in combining several historic sources, but new scholarship is demonstrating the possibilities of combining labor-intensive methods with a "self-consciously subjective" and sympathetic understanding of eighteenth century urban space using original sources. 15 The infographics presented in this paper are aligned with these principles, utilizing a mix of historic cartography and quantifiable data alongside subjective spatial analysis, and in light of questions regarding how the original 2018 dot-density infographic was created, it is worth presenting the dataset and methodology in detail.…”

Urban Plot: Developing a Consistent Definition for Comparative Urban Studies

“…As shown by Keti Lelo, analyzing cadastral maps in conjunction with additional census data and geostatic analyses enables drawing conclusions about many socio-economic aspects. 5 Plots could be used, for example, to reconstruct destroyed urban space, 6 social relationships, 7 real estate markets, 8 or analyze urban development in relation to social conditions. 9 Sometimes projects result in the emergence of historical urban geoportals.…”