Cartas para la Historia en el mundo 2.0la construcción y estudio de un corpus epistolar digital hispano-luso de la Edad Moderna

Resumen

Objective/Context: The text proposes a journey through the methodology and work process followed in the Post Scriptum. A Digital Archive of Ordinary Writings (Early Modern in Spain and Portugal) project, which led to the formation of a digital epistolary corpus—now available online—from funds preserved in judicial archives during the Modern Age in the Iberian Peninsula. Based on a practical case, the paper reflects on the reality of the fieldwork carried out in order to build a digital corpus, as well as on its strengths and weaknesses, which allows a first-hand insight of some changes and challenges of the digital revolution we are immersed in. Methodology: Advances in the field of Digital Humanities are taken as a starting point to examine the multidisciplinarity that characterizes both the corpus formation process and the possibilities for its analysis and study. Originality: The paper describes the complete work process involved in the transformation of primary sources into digital sources in an innovative project in the field of Digital Humanities; it also reflects on problems faced by historians in working with private letters produced by common people (sixteenth-nineteenth centuries), which range from the location of these sources to their selection, digitization, editing, treatment, and subsequent study. Conclusions: In addition to describing the process of transforming sources into a digital corpus and the possibilities of its analysis, the article evidences different analytical ways. Likewise, it addresses the wealth of archives as essential repositories for recovering private and ordinary epistolary sources while also reflecting on the future of their conservation in the digital environment.