This document discusses seals from the Archive of the Bohemian Crown that are represented in the Monasterium.net database. It provides background on Monasterium, noting that it contains over 600,000 medieval and early modern charters from 130 European archives. Charters from 10 Czech archives have been digitized, including the Archive of the Bohemian Crown, though the seals in some charters are blurred due to protective casing. There are plans to create a separate high-quality seal database and digitization project to better represent the seals from the Archive of the Bohemian Crown collection within Monasterium.

1. Past and Future
Seals of the Archive of the Bohemian Crown and their representation in
Monasterium.net
Daniel Jeller
13. 10. 2016 / Olomouc
http://monasterium.net

2. What is Monasterium?

3. Collaborative Archive

4. Quick facts
Online database for medieval and early modern charters
Collaborative platform and editor
Founded 2002 as the “Monasterium-Project”
Around 600.000 charters from over 130 European archives
800.000 digital images
Based on open standards
Free to use

5. Public: Database and Search

6. Private: Userspace and Editor

7. Czech charters in MOM-CA
∞Collaboration with the National Archive due to contacts to
the monastery Břevnov
∞Digitisation starting in Brno and Praha 2007
∞First fonds: Archivy českých klášterů zrušených za Josefa II.
∞2008: Digitisation of Archiv České koruny
∞Continuous digitisations in the last 10 years
∞Currently charters from 10 archives online
∞Many charters still to be published

8. Online data overview
24839
14603
2551
58366
31655
5936
21772
12839
2340
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
Česká republika Národní archiv Archiv České koruny
Charters Images Seal data

9. Seals in Monasterium.net

10. Two components
Image Metadata

11. Depiction as complete as possible
Front Back

12. Drawbacks
‡Digitisation has to be cost effective
‡Images need to be “good enough to use”
‡Not intended as “preservation digitisation”
‡No special care is taken to make the images of seals as good
as possible – the charter as a whole is the main focus

13. Main equipment: fixed lighting
Camera view
Light
Light

14. Shadow but good contrast…

15. …if the seal permits it

16. Detailed metadata possible
Sigillant
Legend
DimensionsMaterial
Condition

17. Problem: Usually just simple text

18. Seals of the Archiv České koruny
∆Metadata similar to other
fonds in Monasterium
∆Charters are specially
conserved
∆Seals fixed in place
∆Removal of protective case
only permitted in special
cases
∆Not problematic for the text
∆Seals can be blurred due to
the plastic

19. Plan: Integrate seal database and images
Separate database only for ACK seals
Highly detailed metadata
Digitisation project to take separate, high quality images of
all seals
Finished 2018

20. Metadata
Before After

21. Images
Before After

22. Integration in Monasterium
Both images and
metadata will be
merged with the
existing data in
Monasterium

23. Thank you!
daniel.jeller@icar-us.eu