Mapping Manuscript Migrations: A Unified Knowledge Graph of Medieval Manuscripts

The dataset integrates three major manuscript databases into a single knowledge graph covering medieval and early modern periods. It unifies records from the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts, the Bibale database, and the Medieval Manuscripts Catalogue from the Bodleian Libraries. This structured data is available via a public SPARQL endpoint and powers a dedicated semantic portal for research.

Use Cases

• [Tracing manuscript provenance] based on unified records from three major source databases
• [Semantic querying and exploration] based on the public SPARQL endpoint
• [Historical network analysis] based on the graph structure linking manuscripts, people, and places
• [Data integration for digital humanities projects] based on the standardized knowledge graph format

Strengths

• Integrates three established, specialized manuscript databases (Schoenberg, Bibale, Oxford)
• Provides a public SPARQL endpoint (http://ldf.fi/mmm/sparql) for direct querying
• Has a documented version history with multiple updates between January 2020 and January 2021

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, size, and specific column names are not provided by any source
• The dataset's freshness is unclear as the last confirmed update was in January 2021
• Descriptions show minor conflicts regarding the exact name of the Oxford source ('Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries' vs. 'Medieval Manuscripts Catalogue from the Bodleian Libraries')

Provenance

Source

Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts (Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies), Bibale database (Institute for Research and History of Texts), Medieval Manuscripts Catalogue (Bodleian Libraries, Oxford)

Collection Method

Transformed and unified using the MMM data transformation pipeline into a knowledge graph.

Time Range

Medieval and early modern periods

Freshness

January 2021 (version 2.2.0)

Geography

Primarily Europe, based on the source collections