17th-century mortality crises in a rural parish in Southern Jutland
Read about how a researcher used the digital map collection as a basis for knowledge about mortality in connection with, among other things, the plague in a parish in Southern Jutland.
Photo: Johannes Mejer
In my project on the 17th century mortality crises in a rural parish in Southern Jutland, and in my research in general, I have really benefited from Royal Danish Library's digital map collection. Partly because the search is transparent and efficient, and partly because the digitisations are of such good quality that I could work with the geography of the maps in GIS software without any problems. In the few cases where the scanning was not sufficient (for example, if I had to study a detail deep in the margin), it has been no problem to make a reservation for the material to be used in the reading room.
More about the project
| Project name | War and demographic crisis in 17th-century Southern Jutland |
|---|---|
| Researcher | Mads Perner, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Technology, Roskilde University |
| Publications based on the project | |
| Service from Royal Danish Library | Digital collections, maps and atlas. In addition, the manuscript reading room. |
| Material from Royal Danish Library | Especially Johannes Mejer's Atlas of Aabenraa County from 1641 |
| Contact at Royal Danish Library | Ask the library |
The researcher elaborates
I have particularly used Johannes Mejer's Atlas of Aabenraa County from 1641, which contains a number of very rare maps of individual farms in the county's villages, which are also linked to a form of land register with named farmers. This can be matched to the church register and enables a spatial analysis of this. Among other things, I have used the maps to show that mortality from plague compared to other diseases was much more concentrated in individual villages and households, which helps to indicate that the disease was transmitted between people.
