In our virtual archive, you can access a content of more than 600,000 charters from more than 100 European archives. A large portion ot the charters are represented as image, the vast majorty with descriptive metadata and a smaller subset with full transcriptions.
The documents are organized in archival fonds and research collections. The content of the virtual archive depends on the decisions of the participants. It can vary from archive to archive, from collection to collection. Registered users have the possibility to take a greater part in the collaborative effort by working with the sources themselves.
The project offers a data creation environment dedicated to charter description (Charters Encoding Initiative / CEI) with a web based XML editor (“EditMOM”). It is used in several research project as a platform for collaborative data creation and publication of research results (see Power and Diplomacy. The Illuminated Charter in France 1160–ca. 1420, for instance).
The project is maintained by ICARus, an international association of archives and research institutes.
