Connecting People and Place. GIS Mapping and the Democratization of Spatial Histories

Every map tells a story about the interaction between people and the world around them. Maps present aspects of the landscape that people find significant. Borders, resources, cities, the lay of the land – each element tells us a narrative about the individual cartographer and the society in which they lived. From maps, we may ascertain the needs and values of a society. In maps, we find the aspirations of those who drew or commissioned them. In this way, maps are not only tools, but displays of power and means of exercising authority. The maintenance of power through cartography has likewise been defined by access. Those with the ability to access the knowledge held in maps are both the first to be influenced by the narrative presented on the page, and the individuals best armed to enforce the map’s presentation of the spatial world. Historically, the ability to view and use maps was limited to those in positions of power, with maps often being held in books and legers, or filling the shelves of the upper strata. However, the advent of archival digitization has lifted the veil on many historic maps, providing access to wider audiences than ever before. But how can we extend this democratization of spatial knowledge and connect these maps with the spaces they depict? Moreover, how can we use them to teach modern audiences about the relationship that people had with space in the past?

My project, Cartography for the Commons: Economics, Environment, Resources, and Power in Everyday Early Modern Maps, attempts to answer this question by bringing maps to life using interactive Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping. By giving the viewer an opportunity to explore early modern maps in an interactive digital setting, they may see how space was depicted in comparison to modern cartographic imagery, allowing similarities and differences to be drawn and connections to be made between space in the past and the present. This model of historical maps presented in an interactive GIS format has shown promise in other projects, most notably OldMapsOnline, an immense database of maps stretching across much of recorded human history. However, most maps displayed in the OldMapsOnline database are officially drawn and often reproduced maps, as well as maps created as secondary sources. Such maps demonstrate the power structures inherent in cartography, and few speak to the experiences of common people historically, whose voices and spatial relationships are so often left off of such official maps. Cartography for the Commons instead examines the hand-drawn amateur maps designed at a local level in early modern Germany, sharing the spatial worlds of ordinary people in a rapidly changing world. This project seeks to democratize maps in two ways: first by telling the stories of ordinary people through the amateur maps that best depict their spatial narratives, and second by providing access to these maps in an easy to access and interpret format using an interactive GIS database. Through democratizing spatial histories, we allow modern audiences to gain a stronger understanding of how people across time have shaped, and in turn been shaped by, the world around them.

On Maps in the Early Modern World

Much like the rest of society in early modern Europe, mapping underwent immense shifts across the era. While maps designed at the dawn of early modernity in the last decades of the fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth century share much in common with their medieval predecessors, by the end of eighteenth-century cartography had become a science and undergone a revolution of its own. Thousands of maps by eighteenth century European cartographers developed from increasingly precise land surveys, measuring the continent and depicting locality in a world hurdling toward modernity. But what of the maps created between 1500 and 1700? How did Europeans in this transitionary period depict the world around them. The answer to this question brings to light social disparity in early modern Europe, which affected the way our relationship with space was depicted in maps.

Beginning in the early sixteenth century, cartography was increasingly seen as a project of early modern state production for “expansion minded rulers” (Kagan and Schmidt, 2007, p. 661). Courts of major European powers enlisted cartographers to develop maps of their territories and those of their adversaries for use in political disputes and military campaigns, using topographical knowledge in pursuit of political power. As commerce exploded in a rapidly globalizing world, maps and sea charts became institutionalized and therefore essential in contributing to the wealth of rulers and corporations alike. With growing authority over territory also came a need to control the environment, as resources and topography were carefully mapped to ensure control (Kagan and Schmidt, 2007, p. 664–666). Each burgeoning state produced maps in accordance with its own needs. On a local level, the early modern mapping revolution continued. In the German lands, a veritable cartographic transformation began in the last years of the sixteenth century that extended into the seventeenth century. As described by Ingrid Baumgärtner:

“Imperial and regional princes, both secular and ecclesiastical, developed the need to survey their dominions and represent them in the medium of maps… Their aim was to accelerate the consolidation of power in their own territories, and to utilize the new knowledge for legal, military, tax-related, and administrative purposes. Surveying and mapping the terrain was a good way to assess the scope of governmental measures and to improve the administration’s access to the territory”
(Baumgärtner, 2022, p. 333).

At their most local level, these maps told distinct stories about the nature of power over the landscape. Moreover, they often presented a narrative from an entirely new perspective: a world from above.

These localized maps from the birds-eye-view were created in two distinct forms: the reproduceable etchings, made famous by Matthäus Merian der Ältere, and the hand drawn and painted maps known as Augenscheinkarten, which formed their own unique geocentric form of art. The maps of Merian, carefully engraved in copper by the master engraver across the mid seventeenth century, present towns, cities, and landscapes from above. Originally, Merian’s workshop produced 2142 images for his series Topographia Germaniae centred on the German lands (many of which can be found on the Deutsches Historisches Museum’s interactive map Merians Deutschland 1642–1654), but later expanded the focus across Europe over thirty-one volumes, completed posthumously by his son in 1672 (Estermann, 2010, n.p.). While Merian’s prints were widely distributed across Europe, presenting local maps to a broader audience, these works were still intended for an upper-strata audience, those who collected books. Moreover, the maps produced in Merian’s workshop tell a limited narrative about everyday life in the towns and cities depicted, but rather capture the cityscapes of early modern Europe. The Augenscheinkarten of the early modern German lands present a contemporary counterpoint to Merian’s widely distributed maps.

Augenscheinkarten, roughly translated as “visual inspection maps,” were a key element of the imperial legal framework of the Holy Roman Empire. Such maps were designed to accompany legal cases brought before the court, and were constructed through an intense visual inspection of the affected landscape by court surveyors before being carefully drawn, inked, and painted to scale by court artists. It was believed that such maps provided the best possible evidence to make legal decisions, based on empirical evidence of trusted officials within the early modern imperial court (Baumann, 2022, p. 18–19). Unlike the maps of Merian, Augenscheinkarten were by nature narrative rich: they present a living world of boundaries, movement, and legal rights, constructing early modern Germany using a unique artistic visual identity. However, unlike Merian, these maps were even more restricted in audience and niche, specifically designed for only the highest ranks of the imperial court and developed by elite surveyors and artists, leaving the vision of the common people at an even greater distance (Baumann, 2022, p. 214). Yet these maps were not the only ones created in early modern Germany. In archives across Germany are thousands of maps, sketched not by imperial officials but by locals, representing their own world and the local understanding of space and landscape. Each of these maps tells their own story.

Cartography for the Commons

My project explores these maps as an element of the cartographic revolution but removed from the upper strata maps that defined the early modern world. Here, we examine maps created by local officials, sketched in legal cases and accounts books, preserved in archives across Germany. Where the Augenscheinkarten were delicately decorated by accomplished artists of the court, the maps used for Cartography for the Commons are often far more crudely designed. Where Merian constructed richly decorated skylines and finely detailed landscapes, the maps found in local court records across the German lands sometimes depict towns and villages as little more than a crudely sketched building, a labelled circle, or in some cases, just a point. Forests, roads, and streams may be amateurly penned across the page, while annotations of rights, boundaries, and disputes may be written in the margins. Each map tells a microhistorical narrative, but combined, they present a macrohistorical vision of everyday life, a vision best presented in a visual and spatial manner.

At the heart of Cartography for the Commons is a reliance on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to present the immensity of this spatial data in an easy-to-understand format. Since the advent of the spatial turn, as mapping software became easily accessible, GIS has been central to the discipline of Spatial History, providing historians with a “science of spatial data collection, management, analysis, and dissemination” (DeBats et al., 2018, p. 1). Given the ability for GIS to present vast amount of spatial data across time and space, it has been used as an essential tool in deciphering historical understandings of space while simultaneously allowing for historians to analyze patterns that would not otherwise be visible. Moreover, this approach has shown immense success already in the field of early modern German histories. Projects such as Visualising the Destruction of Convents & Monasteries during the German Peasants’ War, Messages to Posterity: Tower Capsules in the German Lands since the Middle Ages, and the IEG’s own Digitale Kartenwekstatt Altes Reich (DigiKAR) clearly illustrate how GIS can be used to provide new perspectives on macrohistorical topics, allowing historians to analyze immense amounts of data in a simple to navigate format. Moreover, each of these projects are available for the public to view and analyze on their own, demonstrating the significance of GIS as a leading element of the public-facing Digital Humanities.

The creation of a publicly accessible GIS database for the maps of Cartography for the Commons was an essential component of this project – while the maps explored were created by a local upper-strata and locked away in books and archives away from the public eye, the ideas they depict were a reflection of everyday life for the common people. Within these maps are contained the stories of ordinary people and their interactions with one another and the world around them, therefore, I argue, they belong to the common people of the present as we all grapple with our place in the world. While the digitization of archives has been an incredible step forward in democratizing the historical record, the decentralization of maps across archive websites and databases adds extra steps to access: maps concerning the same localized region may be spread across several archives in Germany. Additionally, despite mass digitization efforts over the past decades, many sources have not yet been digitized. Cartography for the Commons seeks to open this access to all, utilizing a user-friendly interface powered by Felt, combining the maps of archives across Germany to present them as an interactive patchwork of spatial depictions between 1500 and 1700. By bringing these maps to the public, this project provides an opportunity for ordinary people around the world to see how people not so different from themselves viewed the world around them centuries ago.

Yet with this focus on democratization comes methodological questions. What data will resonate with the modern public? Will people wish to view maps about locality, specific resources, or authority over landscape? How can we present it in a way that makes sense to those without an intimate understanding of the early modern German landscape and context? For these questions, the answer lies in the breadth of the project. By providing opportunities to organize maps based on different criteria such as regions, resources, and years, the public will swiftly be able to identify the data that they are interested in. Moreover, I have elected to base the regional breakdown of the map by modern German borders rather than historic boundaries to ensure accessibility for modern audiences interested in modern locality. In the future, however, I plan to add layers to the basemap, where users can opt to view the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire to provide historical spatial context to these maps. These answers lead to one final question: how do we present GIS spatial data in a way that a public audience will both understand and care about? This question has been postulated by David J. Bodenhamer, who states:

“Even though GIS revealed the power of the map in a new form, its use in studying society raised serious questions about the view of the world it presents, namely, it manages and visualizes data in a culturally uninformed way. GIS allows us to know where something occurs and to see what else is happening in the same place, but it tells us nothing about the meaning of what we see”
(Bodenhamer, 2018, p. 531).

Bodenhamer’s solution involves deep mapping, using maps to look beyond just the presentation of data to tell a rich narrative, with full historical analysis beyond a surface level. He proposes the use of exploring individual and collective experiences to add meaning to the GIS data, providing new connections with space (Bodenhamer, 2018, p. 536). As Cartography for the Commons progresses from its initial phase, the opportunities for narrative enrichment of GIS data will be explored within the context of this study.

First Steps

My time as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the DH Lab at the IEG is centred on building the foundations of Cartography for the Commons. Over the course of my stay in Mainz, I am creating a proof of concept for this project, which I anticipate will take at least three years to complete. I have started with a localized case study based around the borders of modern Rheinland Pfalz, using materials from the Landeshauptarchiv in Koblenz and Speyer, the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, and the Hessiches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Wiesbaden in the first months, identifying maps pertaining to modern Rheinland Pfalz dating from 1500-1700. These maps are the first step in this project, which will expand outward from the Rheinland Pfalz region as the project progresses to cover the rest of Germany. Each new map will add increasing depth to the broader understanding of space in the early modern German lands, powered by GIS technology, demonstrating the significance of the Digital Humanities in opening historical narratives and inquiries to the broader public.

Bibliography

Baumgärtner, Ingrid. “Cartography as Politics: The Topographic Land Survey in Hesse around 1600.” In Mapping Narrations – Narrating Maps: Concepts of the World in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, edited by Daniel Gneckow and Phillip Landgrebe. Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2022.

Baumann, Anette. Karten Vor Gericht: Augenscheinkarten Der Vormoderne Als Beweismittel. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2022.

Bodenhamer, David J. “Chasing Bakhtin’s Ghost: From Historical GIS to Deep Mapping.” In The Routledge Companion to Spatial History, edited by Ian Gregory, Don DeBats, and Don Lafreniere. Routledge, 2018.

Estermann, Monika. “Merian the elder, Matthäus (1593-1650).” In The Oxford Companion to the Book. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Kagan, Richard L. and Benjamin Schmidt. “Maps and the Early Modern State: Official Cartography.” In The History of Cartography Volume Three: Cartography in the European Renaissance, edited by David Woodward. University of Chicago Press, 2007.

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