Archives and Writing Lives

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Archives and Writing Lives considers how we access and analyse handwritten historical documents in the digital age and the next steps for the future. The way we use archival sources - which include letters, inventories, legal documents, receipts, wage lists and financial accounts - has undergone profound change in recent decades as a result of the web and digitisation. Yet many challenges remain. Vast areas of the archive, in fact most historical documents, remain unread and unanalysed. Furthermore, in certain respects, the web could be said simply to replicate certain older research paradigms, rather than transform them. This project asks where should our priorities lie next? How do we bring to life lesser-known and never-read archival materials and shed light on their traces of past lives? Archives and Writing Lives focuses its spotlight on Early Modern handwritten archival sources, which are an especially challenging category of archival material, being both voluminous in quantity and notoriously difficult to decipher and interpret. This project will argue forcefully for and will illustrate the benefits of: (1) collaborative and inter-disciplinary models of working in order to progress knowledge; (2) the potential of digital scholarship to transform research and to communicate research findings widely; (3) the particular gains to be made through analysis of sources for women's lives, which include fresh insights and more accurate versions of the broader historical narrative. The findings of this project will have the potential to shape the agenda for how archives are used and interpreted in the future. The project will develop a suite of open-access research publications alongside and linked to innovative digital outputs, which will stand as reference points within the field for many years to come.Archives and Writing Lives is organised around three Research Themes that address the question that runs as a thread throughout: how does digital scholarship change archival research? For Research Theme 1, Bess of Hardwick's Financial Accounts, 1548-1601, the PI will publish an interactive web-edition, freely and openly available online, of previously unpublished Chatsworth House and Hardwick Hall financial accounts that present in spectacular and compelling detail the everyday comings and goings of a grand Elizabethan household. The core data from the web-edition will simultaneously be shared with and hosted by the EMMO Project (Folger Shakespeare Library) and MEDEA Project to develop methods for digital editing of historical financial accounts across international research projects. For Research Theme 2, The Letters and Documents of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1550-87, the PI will publish, freely and opening online, a catalogue of c.800 letters and documents to and from Mary, Queen of Scots. Unedited since 1844, the Scottish Queen's letters offer one of the most powerful cases for shifting the focus of analysis back to the archival materials in order to produce more realistic and accurate portrayals of the historical and political situation. The PI will collaborate with and share data with the WEMLO and EMLO Projects (Bodleian Library, Oxford) to host the letter catalogue and develop methods for modelling and sharing metadata. For Research Theme 3, Early Modern Archives and Digital Transformations, the PI will lead a series of events, workshops and seminars, and edit a distinct section of a major co-edited book on Archives, that will bring together academic researchers, archive and library professionals, digital developers, institutional policy-makers, third sector personnel, performers and the public. Through these events, the PI will create opportunities for a range of potential archive users to engage with questions about the practical challenges, as well as the interests and opportunities, presented today by early modern archival sources.