HERALDic Identity in Context. Data-driven exploration of identities and the interrelationship between group and individual in heraldic communication using an ontology (Kingdom of France and Holy Roman Empire, 12th to 16th century).

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Torsten Hiltmann
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 548649915

Since the middle of the 12th century, coats of arms have played a crucial role in the representation of identity throughout Europe. Long considered personal signs used to identify knights in battle, recent research has revealed their complex semiotic nature, oscillating from the outset between expressions of personal identity and signs of group membership. Despite the seemingly universal nature of heraldry, it seems that over time and across regions, different cultures and social practices have given rise to a variety of uses - privileging either the use of a widely shared coat of arms, or its singularization by various means (marks of cadency, crests, badges) - depending on the context and medium / material, and in particular concerning the distinction between a group and an individual. However, in the absence of a sound method and the means to manage considerable masses of documentation, these phenomena remain largely unknown to research. Until now, research has been based on a limited collection of a few hundred coats of arms, describing, at best, the heraldic practices specific to a particular family, geographical area or social and family group. The HERALDIC project is a logical continuation of past projects carried out by the consortium members, who have been jointly engaged in the development of heraldic databases for over ten years. The objective of the HERALDIC project is to implement digital methods developed for the description and analysis of coats of arms in their representational contexts, and to apply them to data sets relating to the French Kingdom and the Empire from the 12th to 16th centuries. The intention is to explain the expression of identities through heraldic signs, based on documented collections that are truly representative of the phenomenon. HERALDIC will thus explore the forms and functions of the individualization of coats of arms by studying the graphic variations, chronology, geography, sociology and the protagonists of these signs of identity. With the goal of refocusing heraldic information on the coat of arms source, considered in its context, HERALDIC will rely on the Digital Heraldry Knowledge Graph and its web application DIGITAL HERALDRY RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT (DHRE) which has been developed by the German project team since 2020, and will primarily utilize the data collected by the French databases. This digital tool offers an easily accessible means of describing data using multilingual ontologies dedicated to the coat of arms, its owner, its medium and its visual context, and making them exploitable for historical research. In this way, HERALDIC will not only provide answers to research questions, but will also establish a method for analyzing and processing heraldic data available to the scientific community that can serve as an international benchmark.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Partner Organisation: Agence Nationale de la Recherche / The French National Research Agency
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Laurent Hablot