STREAM (Spatiotemporal Research Infrastructure for Early Modern Brabant and Flanders): Sources, Data and Methods

Abstract

This article presents the technical characteristics of the Belgian STREAM-project (2015–2019). The goal of STREAM is to facilitate and innovate historical research into local and regional processes through the development of a spatiotemporal infrastructure for early modern Brabant and Flanders, two of the most urbanized and developed areas of pre-industrial Europe. To this end, STREAM systematically collects a range of key data from a diversity of historical sources to provide a geographically comprehensive and long-run quantitative and spatial account of early modern society at the local level (parishes, villages, towns) regarding territory, transport, demography, agriculture, industry and trade, related to the development of a tailored historical geographical information system (GIS) based on the well-known Ferraris map (1770–1778). This article discusses the possibilities and pitfalls of the data collection and the construction of a spatial infrastructure for the pre-statistical era.