MonArch: Monastic Archaeology

An online publication of the excavation of the medieval monastery of St. Jean-des-Vignes in Soissons, France.

Sheila Bonde and Clark Maines have been excavating the medieval monastery of St. Jean-des-Vignes in Soissons, France since 1982. They have been investigating forms of digital publication that will make it easy to link spatial data such as site plans, elevations and photographs of the site to the customary, a handbook that prescribes the structure of daily and religious life for this particular monastery.

STG’s involvement with MonArch goes back to 1998, when a student built a simple animation of the monastery site plan, showing how it changing over time. Since that time, we have continued to work with Bonde and Maines developing a more detailed digital monograph about the excavation and their conclusions.

In 2001-2002, Bonde received an STG faculty grant to develop a pilot version of this project. STG put together a website that foregrounded the spatial aspects of the archaeological site, and linked to other information through them. We designed three connected systems to represent text, site plans and artifacts. The English and Latin text of the customary, the monastery’s handbook, was encoded in XML using the TEI guidelines. A detailed set of subject keywords were encoded at the division, paragraph, and phrase level, allowing for retrieval of particular terms and topics. The system also included a database which contained records of individual artifacts found at the site. At the center was a site plan to which the locations of artifact and subjects cited in the customary were linked, allowing the reader to explore the architecture, its use, and material record.

In 2004, Bonde and Maines received an NEH grant to make full translations of the texts, generate new drawings, and develop a full version of the website. This project was carried forward with the help of Anne Loyer (Wesleyan) and Cliff Wulfman (STG). The system was completely redesigned using more robust XML software, and a new data infrastructure based on METS and MODS metadata. This resulted in a new site with signifiantly more information and more interactivity.

In 2008, Bonde received a Brown Seed grant to continue development.

MonArch: Monastic Archaeology is a project of History of Art and Architecture

Contributors to this project include Clifford Wulfman (STG), Elli Mylonas (CDS), Julia Flanders (CDS), Kerri Hicks (STG), Morris Hirsch (STG), Clark Maines (Primary Investigator), Sheila Bonde (Primary Investigator)

Funding for this project came from NEH, Brown Seed Grant, STG Faculty Grant