Repertórium Academicum Germanicum Projekt

The Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (RAG) is a long-term digital project that has been researching the students and scholars of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) between 1250 and 1550. In 2020, the RAG was integrated into the larger project Repertorium Academicum (REPAC), which now also includes the Repertorium Academicum Helveticum (RAH) and the Repertorium Bernense (RB). The three sub-projects analyse different European regions: the HRE in the RAG, the Swiss Confederation in the RAH and the territory of the city of Bern in the RB. REPAC is based at the Historical Institute of the University of Bern. The common goal of the projects is to create prosopographical foundations for the history of the impact of scholars and their knowledge in order to clarify the origins and developments of the modern knowledge society. Methodologically, the projects combine approaches from social, university and knowledge history with digital prosopography. At the centre is a research database in which the biographical events of students and scholars are recorded. This data is localised geographically and temporally to enable dynamic visualisations on maps, in networks and time series. The analyses focus on the geographical and social mobility of individuals and on the dissemination and application of academic knowledge by individuals and institutions such as universities, schools, churches, monasteries, ecclesiastical and secular courts and tribunals. In addition, this digital methodology enables together with the tools for data visualisation the reconstruction of specific knowledge spaces analysing their determining factors. This article explains this methodologies using the Hungarian scholars documented in the RAG. This group is a vivid example of the study of academic knowledge circulation and spaces in European networks, with the University of Vienna playing a central role as a mediator of knowledge. The Hungarian scholars demonstrate fundamental research perspectives that are particularly relevant for collaborative approaches: Since biographical data collection requires in-depth knowledge of the historical background of the respective region, an in-depth study of the Hungarian scholars in the RAG would be particularly insightful if their biographies could be digitally supplemented with information from regional or local libraries and archives.