'We Built a Database of 290,000 English Medieval Soldiers' (theconversation.com) 11
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Conversation, written by authors Adrian R. Bell, Anne Curry, and Jason Sadler: When you picture medieval warfare, you might think of epic battles and famous monarchs. But what about the everyday soldiers who actually filled the ranks? Until recently, their stories were scattered across handwritten manuscripts in Latin or French and difficult to decipher. Now, our online database makes it possible for anyone to discover who they were and how they lived, fought and travelled. To shed light on the foundations of our armed services -- one of England's oldest professions -- we launched the Medieval Soldier Database in 2009. Today, it's the largest searchable online database of medieval nominal data in the world. It contains military service records giving names of soldiers paid by the English Crown. It covers the period from 1369 to 1453 and many different war zones.
We created the database to challenge assumptions about the lack of professionalism of soldiers during the hundred years war and to show what their careers were really like. In response to the high interest from historians and the public (the database has 75,000 visitors per month), the resource has recently been updated. It is now sustainably hosted by GeoData, a University of Southampton research institute. We have recently added new records, taking the dataset back to the late 1350s, meaning it now contains almost 290,000 entries. [...] We hope the database will continue to grow and go on providing answers to questions about our shared military heritage. We are sure that it will unlock many previously untold stories of soldier ancestors.
We created the database to challenge assumptions about the lack of professionalism of soldiers during the hundred years war and to show what their careers were really like. In response to the high interest from historians and the public (the database has 75,000 visitors per month), the resource has recently been updated. It is now sustainably hosted by GeoData, a University of Southampton research institute. We have recently added new records, taking the dataset back to the late 1350s, meaning it now contains almost 290,000 entries. [...] We hope the database will continue to grow and go on providing answers to questions about our shared military heritage. We are sure that it will unlock many previously untold stories of soldier ancestors.
One of... (Score:4, Funny)
one of England's oldest professions
Come back to me when you have a database of England's oldest profession.
Re: One of... (Score:1)
500 years of the occupants of Gropecunt Lane.
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Where's the data dump? (Score:2)
Because if the database ever gets taken down, it would be a shame if the data is lost forever.
Re: (Score:1)
Disney hasn't yet claimed copyright on 600 year old records? They should be OK for a while before the laws are updated to include these military records?
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Releasing a database of personal info? Shame on you! But we have laws against that...
Battle of Sluys (Score:2)
The article linked shows a painting depicting the battle of Sluys [fandom.com], what this article skips is that back then only the nobles were taken prisoner (because they could be ransomed), anyone else was killed. Going back to the main article, Geoffrey Chaucer is mentioned as a soldier and diplomat who had been ransomed back in 1359.
List of names is a list of names (Score:3)
I did a random name search, "Oliver, John", the database came up with a list of 14 names and it didn't include anything that would help me "to discover who they were and how they lived, fought and travelled."
Especially on the topics of how they lived, fought and travelled.
Meh.
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Not even a picture of their tombstone, yeah.
I thought that the collective noun for soldiers .. (Score:2)
was army not database ?