Estimating the Loss of Medieval Literature with an Unseen Species Model from Ecodiversity

Mike Kestemont; F.B. Karsdorp

Estimating the Loss of Medieval Literature with an Unseen Species Model from Ecodiversity

Meertens Instituut - Nederlandse Etnologie

Research output: Chapter in book/volume › Contribution to conference proceedings › Scientific › peer-review

Abstract

The century-long loss of documents is one of the major impediments to the study of historic literature. Here we focus on Middle Dutch chivalric epics (ca. 1200-1450), a genre for which little archival records exist that shed light on the survival rates of works and documents. We cast the quantitative estimation of these survival rates as a variant of the unseen species problem from ecodiversity. We apply an established non-parametric method ( Chao1 ) and compare it to a number of common alternatives on simulated data. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for conventional philology: our numbers suggest that the losses sustained on the level of works may be more dramatic than previously imagined, whereas those at the document-level align surprisingly well with existing estimates in book history, although these were based on completely different data sources.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Humanities Research (CHR 2020)
Editors	Folgert Karsdorp, Barbara McGillivray, Adina Nerghes, Melvin Wevers
Pages	44-55
Number of pages	11
Volume	2723
Publication status	Published - Oct 2020

Keywords

medieval literature
book history
unknown species problem
Middle Dutch
ecodiversity

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http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2723/short10.pdfLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "The century-long loss of documents is one of the major impediments to the study of historic literature. Here we focus on Middle Dutch chivalric epics (ca. 1200-1450), a genre for which little archival records exist that shed light on the survival rates of works and documents. We cast the quantitative estimation of these survival rates as a variant of the unseen species problem from ecodiversity. We apply an established non-parametric method ( Chao1 ) and compare it to a number of common alternatives on simulated data. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for conventional philology: our numbers suggest that the losses sustained on the level of works may be more dramatic than previously imagined, whereas those at the document-level align surprisingly well with existing estimates in book history, although these were based on completely different data sources.",

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Estimating the Loss of Medieval Literature with an Unseen Species Model from Ecodiversity. / Kestemont, Mike; Karsdorp, F.B.

Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Humanities Research (CHR 2020). ed. / Folgert Karsdorp; Barbara McGillivray; Adina Nerghes; Melvin Wevers. Vol. 2723 2020. p. 44-55.

Research output: Chapter in book/volume › Contribution to conference proceedings › Scientific › peer-review

TY - CHAP

T1 - Estimating the Loss of Medieval Literature with an Unseen Species Model from Ecodiversity

AU - Kestemont, Mike

AU - Karsdorp, F.B.

PY - 2020/10

Y1 - 2020/10

N2 - The century-long loss of documents is one of the major impediments to the study of historic literature. Here we focus on Middle Dutch chivalric epics (ca. 1200-1450), a genre for which little archival records exist that shed light on the survival rates of works and documents. We cast the quantitative estimation of these survival rates as a variant of the unseen species problem from ecodiversity. We apply an established non-parametric method ( Chao1 ) and compare it to a number of common alternatives on simulated data. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for conventional philology: our numbers suggest that the losses sustained on the level of works may be more dramatic than previously imagined, whereas those at the document-level align surprisingly well with existing estimates in book history, although these were based on completely different data sources.

AB - The century-long loss of documents is one of the major impediments to the study of historic literature. Here we focus on Middle Dutch chivalric epics (ca. 1200-1450), a genre for which little archival records exist that shed light on the survival rates of works and documents. We cast the quantitative estimation of these survival rates as a variant of the unseen species problem from ecodiversity. We apply an established non-parametric method ( Chao1 ) and compare it to a number of common alternatives on simulated data. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for conventional philology: our numbers suggest that the losses sustained on the level of works may be more dramatic than previously imagined, whereas those at the document-level align surprisingly well with existing estimates in book history, although these were based on completely different data sources.

KW - medieval literature

KW - book history

KW - unknown species problem

KW - Middle Dutch

KW - ecodiversity

M3 - Contribution to conference proceedings

VL - 2723

SP - 44

EP - 55

BT - Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Humanities Research (CHR 2020)

A2 - Karsdorp, Folgert

A2 - McGillivray, Barbara

A2 - Nerghes, Adina

A2 - Wevers, Melvin

ER -

Estimating the Loss of Medieval Literature with an Unseen Species Model from Ecodiversity

Abstract

Keywords

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