Web portal for medieval emblems – E-SIGNA

The purpose of the E-SIGNA portal is to pool and enrich standardized data based on the emblematic signs of the Middle Ages, in connection with the biographical base of the Institute of Research and History of Texts.

This E-SIGNA portal will, in its initial phase, be based on the harmonization and exchange of data from three existing databases led by the project coordinator, Laurent Hablot, Director of Studies in the fourth section of the Ecole pratique des hautes études (EPHE - PSL), responsible for the emblematic conference, and carried by the laboratory SAPRAT (Knowledge and practices of the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century).
These are the research programs’s bases ARMMA - monumental Armorial of the Middle Ages -, SIGILLA - database of seals preserved in France -, DEVISE (BADGES) - base of the emblematic European.

These three programs were recently federated within the E-SIGNA project within the Domaine d’intérêt majeur "Text Sciences and New Knowledge" which led to the opening of an E-SIGNA Carnet hypothese dedicated to cross-searches. This project E-SIGNA already collaborates, through its various entities, with many French and European databases relating to the sources of the medieval history concerned by this type of information: bases on the manuscripts of the IRHT, seals bases (SIGILLUM PORTUGALIAE, AGR of Belgium, project EUROSEALS), diplomatic bases (TELMA, ACRONAVARRE), base COLLECTA, base of the research center on medieval painted ceilings (RCPPM).

The structuring of the E-SIGNA portal will be an opportunity to define the standards, which do not yet exist, applicable to this specific area of emblematic: coat of arms, seals, badges, etc. This encoding of emblematic data, validated by a scientific committee, will contribute, in connection with the project of semantic web of heraldic data carried by the German University of Münster, to form a dedicated working group within the Resaerch Data Alliance program (RDA).

The biographical data aggregated from these three emblematic bases, will also be linked and enriched by those gathered in the “Base Personnes” - biographical database, supported by the IRHT - to which they will contribute according to specific exchange protocols.

E-SIGNA, consisting of these two entities (biographies and emblems), reciprocally fed and updated from standardized data, exposed in RDF format, will offer a dedicated and interoperable portal for the entire scientific community concerned by this type of emblematic data (prosopographic databases, manuscripts, monuments, coins, stained glass, etc.).

This unpublished repertory, based on documented sources, responds to a real need, regularly expressed, research, conservation and the supply of reference frames.

The implementation of E-SIGNA imposes several actions:
- Establishment of an international working group for the elaboration of specific standards.
- Harmonization of baselines and matching of heterogeneous data via a single CMS.
- Encoding of data from the repositories, writing of API ensuring the opening of the data, exposure of the data in RDF format.
- Definition of the API exchange protocols between the basics of E-SIGNA and the PERSON BASE of the IRHT and development of the portal, the search engine and specific tools.