Digital Library Stats
Records: 2,551
Total Words: 972,587
Unique Words: 43,150
Digital Library Design
The metadata, coding, and other downloads and resources for HRDL is available on our GitHub page: https: //github.com/HumanRemainsDL/HRDL.
Most of our extracts are taken from longer sources because we are focused on passages referring to archaeological exhumation, the investigation of human remains, or reburial since the 7th century AD in Britain, in whatever capacity it may be mentioned. Some of our extracts are only short ‘passing references’ while others are more substantial ‘anecdotal’ pieces or lengthy ‘detailed accounts’. While the majority of our extracts are about people, places, and events in England, Scotland, and Wales, we also have a small number of examples from beyond Britain which were either used as source material for writers in Britain or were events mentioned in British accounts.
This means The Human Remains Digital Library is the first historical collection of material relating to the management of human remains in Britain from the early medieval period through to the end of the Victorian era. It has extracts from a wide variety of genres, forms of writing, and media, spanning thirteen centuries of history. It reveals for the first time the complex attitudes towards different types of burials over time and around Britain; from saints and royals to military members, ordinary people, criminals and more.
We have made no attempt to comment on whether these accounts are real, imagined, or embellished, and in many cases, this is simply not possible to determine conclusively. We are more interested in how people in the past expressed their hopes, ideals, or fears about the treatment of buried human remains. Accounts that might be deemed (semi-)fictional are thus just as useful as those supposed to report real events.
The extracts in our library have been sourced from a number of archives, libraries, and repositories. Most of these are digital collections and the extracts are from documents that are out of copyright or under Creative Commons Licence. We have also included extracts taken from physical documents as well, providing the first digital version. We do not provide the original full text as it usually contains significant amounts of irrelevant information for this project. However, the bibliographic entry for each extract allows users to find the original sources themselves.
Where an extract was not available in modern English, we have translated the extract ourselves and the translator is credited in the library. Wherever possible, we have avoided altering or editing extracts sourced from Modern English editions, preserving the spelling of proper nouns, punctuation, etc. as appears in the original edition. Extracts sourced from Early Modern English editions and those that the project has translated have been modernised in accordance with current British English spelling and grammatical conventions. When necessary, we have inserted within square brackets ‘[ ]’ the proper name(s) of locations or individuals directly referenced in wider context of a source but missing from the extract.
All place names reflect officially recognised modern day settlements or areas. Users interested in spelled variations or specific sites (e.g. ‘St Martin’ or ‘St Mary’ in Beverley) will be able to use the Site Name filter option and keyword search to find relevant extracts. Personal names have also been standardised to match recognised forms (as would be found through a standard Wikipedia or Google search) to make searching easier and consistent.
To make the texts easier to find, search, and filter, we have included metadata for every extract in the library. The metadata are based on Dublin Core, which is a recognised international standard for creating digital material, but we have also included additional metadata fields of our own to link texts together and make searching the contents of the extracts more intuitive and meaningful for our users.
Our core design philosophy is to encourage users to explore extracts that they might not otherwise have considered. We are particularly proud of the Random sorting option on our main library search page serving as the default setting, and hope this will whet users’ curiosity for unanticipated explorations of the corpus. Our exploratory ‘rabbithole research’ approach is intended to emulate the experience of browsing through shelves in a physical library, where intriguing snippets can open up new ideas for potential investigation.
Digital Library Status
Planned updates and work-in-progress
- Release of embargoed texts
- Image bank incorporated
Images
The images that feature in the library are hosted elsewhere or on the website of their original copyright holder. Rights information provided were accurate when added to the digital library, but users should always confirm the latest copyright status before seeking to use images elsewhere. Image records and titles begin: ‘[IMG]:’.
Copyright
Whilst all effort has been made to comply with UK Copyright law with regards to the records held in this digital library, if you believe any extract is in violation of such, please contact remains@liverpool.ac.uk