The DISSICON dataset (which stands for DISSINET Conceptual Network) provides the lexico-semantic framework that the DISSINET project has developed since 2019. This framework offers an ontology for analysing medieval inquisition records and other trial documents. It formalizes actions, concepts, and their relationships – as they appear in the context of Latin sources – to support computational analyses of historical material.
We are releasing the semantic core of the DISSINET database under a permissive license. This comprises our complete set of Actions and Concepts.
For historians working with social scientific or data-oriented approaches, this dataset offers a powerful machine-operable ontology for researching medieval inquisition records. It includes semantic relations such as synonymy and detailed taxonomic structures.
For lexicographers, DISSICON maps how verbs and other parts of speech are used in the context of medieval inquisition records. Its entities thus primarily represent medieval Latin words and phrases – although some vernacular terms are also included – put in an extensive semantic network of English-language concepts. Wherever possible, we link these to WordNet meaning identifiers.
We expect this dataset will primarily benefit InkVisitor software users, who can pre-populate their installations with our ontology if it suits their research needs.
This dataset represents a work-in-progress. Semantic relations may vary in depth across it. Since we developed this ontology for our own immediate research needs, we also recognize that we still need to map it onto other relevant standards, such as Ontolex Lemon for the lexicographic components. We hope to progress on this soon.
Katia Riccardo's doctoral dissertation, "A computational analysis of inquisitorial language and relationship networks in the inquisition register of Bologna (1291-1310)", is now available online. It offers the most comprehensive digital humanities study to date of the Bologna inquisition register, one of the richest surviving sources for inquisitorial activity in medieval Italy.
Kaarel Sikk, David Zbíral, and Reima Välimäki have published a new study in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities that examines how Peter Zwicker's inquisition in Stettin (1393–94) utilised information gathered from deponent testimonies over the course of subsequent interrogations. The analysis of network and temporal data offers a fresh perspective on strategic decision-making by inquisitors.
