BASQEGO project: New approaches to the History of the Languages of the Basque Country

BASQEGO aims to explore the history of the languages of the Basque Country (French, Castilian, Basque) through the study of ego-documents. It has two main objectives: (i) to establish a large corpus of ego-documents from the Basque linguistic area from Bilbao to Bayonne and covering the period 1680-1780; (ii) to provide an analysis of the ego-documents (French, Castilian, Basque) through the prism of the history of writing and historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. The corpus will be mainly based on the Prize Papers collection, since it contains numerous documents from ships sailing to and from the Basque Country. PI of the project is Céline Mounole, associate professor at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour and attached to the IKER research center (UMR 5478). Randolph Cock and Lucas Haasis from the Prize Papers Project are part of the project.
 

Bordeaux–Dublin Letters Project

The Bordeaux–Dublin Letters Project, led by Prof. Dr. Thomas M. Truxes together with Louis M. Cullen, John Shovlin, NYU, and funded by The British Academy

The discovery of the so-called Bordeaux–Dublin letters and a large number of supporting documents as part of the Prize Papers set in motion an ambitious project to mark the 20th anniversary of Glucksman Ireland House and the Irish Studies programme at New York University (NYU) in 2013. Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, Glucksman Ireland House, NYU’s centre for Irish and Irish-American studies, is the site of innovative academic and public programmes, and home of the American Journal of Irish Studies.

There are three parts to the Bordeaux–Dublin Letters (BDL) Project: publication of a scholarly edition of the documents at the National Archives; a high-profile public exhibition in New York City; and a by-invitation academic conference featuring leading scholars from Ireland, France, the UK, and the United States. All the project objectives have been achieved.

For more information, please follow this link.

In September 2013, the British Academy published an edition of The Bordeaux–Dublin Letters, 1757: Correspondence of an Irish Community Abroad. As a result of our collaboration with Thomas M. Truxes, these transcriptions will also be shown later on the Prize Papers Portal.

On the 30th of November 2021, our long-standing cooperation partner and a pioneer of Prize Papers research, Prof. Dr Tom Truxes, published his new book “The Overseas Trade of British America. A Narrative History” (Yale University Press):
 

Have also a look on the following publications: 

The Bordeaux-Dublin Letters, 1757

Ireland, France, and the Atlantic in a Time of War
 

CEU Elcano International Chair. Naval History and Culture

The CEU Elcano International Chair. Naval History and Culture is the result of an agreement signed, in September 2023, by the Naval Museum Foundation and the San Pablo CEU University. The CEU Cardenal Herrera University, the Abat Oliba CEU University and the CEU Fernando III University complete the list of promoters of the Chair.

This Chair is heir to the CEU Elcano International Chair. First Around the World, created by the Spanish Navy and the San Pablo CEU University within the framework of the commemorations of the V Centenary of the expedition of the first around the world by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano (1519-1522). The CEU Cardenal Herrera University, the Abat Oliba CEU University and the San Pablo Andalucía CEU Foundation joined this first chair. 

For more information, please follow this link.

Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen

At the University of Tübingen, Rembert Eufe and Fabian Schwabe have focused on the Prize Papers from a Digital Humanities and Romance linguistics perspectives. In their interdisciplinary Master courses, they have transcribed, annotated and analysed private letters in French from the ships La Belle Louise and La Catherine as well as others in French and Spanish from La Ninfa.

Huygens Institute for History and Culture of the Netherlands

Huygens Institute (HI) is the leading research institute in the field of history and culture of the Netherlands. The Huygens Institute has set itself the goal of making and keeping sources digitally accessible. HI, located in the old city center in Amsterdam, is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Follow the link for more information.

Huygens ING launched the Dutch Prize Papers Virtual Research Environment in June 2019. 

Dutch Prize Papers Virtual Research Environment 

The free accessible VRE is aimed at allowing the user to browse through 72.000 images, supplied with metadata, from the huge Prize Papers
Archive. The VRE is work in progress; its functionalities and search options will be improved continuously. 

National Museum of the Faroe Islands and University of the Faroe Islands

Letters and artefacts from the captured ship Anne Marie (1807): The National Museum of the Faroe Islands, in collaboration with the University of the Faroe Islands, has initiated a cooperative project in conjunction with the Prize Paper Project, focusing on the documents and artefacts from the ship Anne Marie, which was seized by the British in 1807. The collaboration encompasses access to and research on the records, along with the exchange of metadata. Erling Isholm, associated professor at the Department of History and Social Sciences, contributes to the project by providing metadata on the records, which will be incorporated into the Prize Papers Portal.

The National Museum has requested to borrow the artefacts and associated records, and is currently preparing a special exhibition, scheduled to open in the spring of 2026. Research on the artefacts and documents is being conducted in close collaboration with the Department of History and Social Sciences (addressing the historical aspects) and the Faculty of Education (focusing on the textile aspects).

The Faroese public service broadcaster – Kringvarp Føroya - participated in the unsealing of the letters and packages at the National Archives and will produce a documentary that explores the Anne Marie and the associated records. The National Museum and the University of the Faroe Islands are key experts in this project.

The plan is to publish the research conducted within this project in academic publications.

Read more about the event in the articles below: 

"Pristine sweater in parcel posted in 1807” (English)

"Einst kaperten Briten ein Schiff von den Faröer-Inseln” (German) 

"200 Jahre alte Päckchen geöffnet” (German) 
 

Scandinavian Prize Papers

The Scandinavian Prize Papers Project: Global and Maritime History in the Early Modern Period is funded by a grant from the Swedish Research Council/Vetenskapsrådet.

The VR-project, led by Margaret Hunt, Professor of History at Uppsala University, and Leos Müller, Professor of History at Stockholm University and Director of the Centre for Maritime Studies (CEMAS), uses the Prize Papers documents to explore knowledge and knowledge transfer between non-elite people (sailors, skippers, ocean travelers) in an age of global trade and travel.

For more information, visit the Scandinavian Prize Papers website here.

SlaveVoyages

The SlaveVoyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more.

Southern Netherlandish Prize Papers Project, cooperation partner: The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)

The Prize Papers hold great potential for research on the maritime history of the Southern Netherlands, and have not been valorized in a Flemish context before. In collaboration with the Prize Papers Project and other national and international partners, VLIZ (Flanders Marine Institute) has initiated thematic research on this unique historical material, with an initial focus on the period of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1714). With this research project, VLIZ aims to stimulate research in the field of maritime history in Flanders, both by conducting original research and by facilitating collaboration on this source material.

Visit the VLIZ page for more information.

Unlocking History

Unlocking History, led by Jana Dambrogio (MIT Libraries) and Dr. Daniel Starza Smith (King's College London). Unlocking History is developing a series of resources for the study of “letterlocking,” the historical practice of folding and securing letters to become their own envelopes. These resources include a YouTube channel with more than 200 instructional videos and the online Dictionary of Letterlocking. Unlocking History is part of the Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered project, investigating a trunk of undelivered letters now held in The Hague.

Here’s a link to their article in Nature Communications that explains the extraordinary computational breakthrough of virtually unfolding an old unopened letter. 

QuaSU – Quellenarbeit im Sachunterricht

The Prize Papers Project collaborates with the project QuaSU (Quellenarbeit im Sachunterricht), which examines work with historical sources in primary school social studies lessons. The subject of Sachunterricht is a subject with natural science and social science content. It is taught exclusively in primary school and supports a general understanding of science at primary school age. It is planned to develop (learning) tasks and teaching materials based on the material sources from the Prize Papers collection. This will be followed by considerations on the practical implementation of these materials in subject lessons. The historical thinking of primary school children will also be used as an object of research. With regard to primary school children, the development of a procedure for dealing with sources is planned in the long term. This is to be further developed into a model.

Dr. Silke Bakenhus is responsible for and leads the project. She works at Faculty I - Department of Education and Social Sciences in the Department of Primary Education and Social Studies at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany.