The MoEML Gazetteer of Early Modern London Janelle Jenstad Author Kim McLean-Fiander Author Janelle Jenstad Conceptor Martin Holmes Conceptor Kim McLean-Fiander Copy Editor Data Manager Tye Landels Junior Programmer Joey Takeda Programmer Martin Holmes Associate Project Director Kim McLean-Fiander Project Director Janelle Jenstad The Map of Early Modern Londonhttp://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/includes.xmlVictoria, BC, Canada
Department of English P.O.Box 3070 STNC CSC University of Victoria Victoria, BC Canada V8W 3W1
2016University of Victoria978-1-55058-519-3 Janelle Jenstad london@uvic.ca

Copyright held by The Map of Early Modern London on behalf of the contributors.

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Born digital.

Most MoEML documents, or significant fragments with xml:id attributes, can be addressed using the mol: prefix and accessed through the web application with their id + .xml.

The molagas prefix points to the shape representation of a location on MoEML’s OpenLayers3-based rendering of the Agas Map.

Links to page-images in the Chadwyck-Healey Early English Books Online (EEBO) repository. Note that this is a subscription service, and may not be accessible to those accessing it from locations outside member institutions.

Links to page-images in the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA).

The mdt (MoEML Document Type) prefix used on catRef/target points to a central taxonomy in the includes file.

The mdtlist (MoEML Document Type listing) prefix used in linking attributes points to a listings page constructed from a category in the central MDT taxonomy in the includes file. There are two variants, one with the plain xml:id of the category, meaning all documents in the specified category, and one with the suffix _subcategories, meaning all subcategories of the category.

The molgls (MoEML gloss) prefix used on term/corresp points to a a glossary entry in the GLOSS1.xml file.

This molvariant prefix is used on ref/target attributes during automated generation of gazetteer index files. It points to an element in the generated variant spellings listing file which lists all documents which contain a particular spelling variant for a location.

This molajax prefix is used on ref/target attributes during the static build process, to specify links which point to MoEML resources which should not be loaded into the source page during standalone processing; instead, these should be turned into links to the XML source documents, and at HTML page load time, these should be turned into AJAX calls. This is to handle the scenario in which a page such as an A-Z index of the whole site would end up containing virtually the whole site inside itself.

The molstow prefix is used on facs attributes to link to the HCMC verison of the Stow facsimiles. Usually the first group is the year (1633) and then last is the image number (0001).

The molshows prefix is used on facs attributes to link to the copies of page-images from mayoral shows stored in the london account on the HCMC server. The first group is the year (1633), the second is the source repository, and then last is the image file name.

The sb prefix is used on ref/target attributes to link to Stow’s Books URLs at UToronto.

Our editorial and encoding practices are documented in detail in the Praxis section of our website.

 Added sourceDesc information for born-digital documents. Standardized respStmts for JENS1, MCFI1, and HOLM3 and added TAKE1 as Junior Programmer. Added XInclude for listPrefixDef in the header. Added link to Historic Towns Atlas Revised page and added links. Wrote description of gazetteer. Created this file. The MoEML Gazetteer of Early Modern London

Go directly to the alphabetized gazetteer.

We provide a downloadable GeoJSON version of the MoEML gazetteer with full GIS coordinates and all name variants (raw JSON, zip).

What is a Gazetteer?

A gazetteer is a geographical index or dictionary (<ref type="bibl" target="mol:OEDI1">OED</ref> gazetteer, n.3.). The Alexandria Digital Library project defines the minimum components of a gazetteer entry as (1) a geographic name, (2) a geographic location represented by coordinates, and (3) a type designation. The British Historic Towns Atlas project defines a gazetteer as a list of names (of buildings, streets, etc.) complete with some form of information about each place. In its simplest form, it is a listing of map names with a map reference—for example, a town’s latitude and longitude or its map grid-reference as listed at the end of a reference atlas (What is a Gazetteer?). The MoEML Gazetteer of Early Modern London is a descriptive gazetteer in that each place is linked to an Encyclopedia page with a thick description of place.

Why do we Need a Gazetteer of Early Modern London?

Until now, there has been no digital gazetteer and authority list for placenames in early modern London. Our gazetteer offers a standard for placenames ca. 1550-1650.For an analogue scholarly gazetteer of placenames ca. 1520, see the Gazetteer to c. 1270 and c. 1520 Maps (Carlin and Belcher), an extraordinary compendium of research first published in Vol. III of The British Atlas of Historic Towns series, The City of London from Prehistoric Times to <emph>c.</emph> 1520, and now helpfully available online in three .pdf files. Such a standard enables interoperability across digital projects that include early modern London placenames. Shakeosphere and DEEP have already used our gazetteer to identify toponyms in their data and link to MoEML. We hope that other scholars, editors, and researchers will adopt these authority names in secondary criticism, in modernized editions of early texts, and in datasets that include a geographic component.

The gazetteer also allows us to aggregate many variant names that have been given to a place. We define place as a space that has been made meaningful by human activity or observation. The existence of a toponym is one sign that space has become place. Furthermore, toponyms often preserve a memory of why a place is significant. Thus, toponyms are intrinsically interesting to scholars of language, history, and onomastics (the study of the origin of proper names).

What is the MoEML Gazetteer?

The MoEML Gazetteer has six components, organized into sortable columns:

Variant Toponym: Each variant toponym (i.e., name for a place) — whether a variant spelling or an alternate name — has its own row in the alphabetical table. The variants come from our born-digital encyclopedia entries, our library of diplomatic transcriptions, and our diplomatic transcription of John Stow’s 1598 A Survey of London (currently in draft, viewable upon request). As our library and database grow, the number of variants will also increase. If the toponym you wish to identify is not in our gazetteer, please contact us. (See search tips below.) Authority Name: An authority name is the generally recognized or standard name we use for a place. The authority name is historically specific. Our practice is to identify the name most commonly in use around 1598-1603 (the dates of the first and second editions of Stow’s Survey) and to render it in modernized spelling.The authority name that appears in the gazetteer is drawn from the title element in our Placeography XML files. We use the authority name as the titles for the entries in the Placeography. Click on the authority name to go directly to the Placeography entry. xml:id: Each place has a single xml:id. All alternate names and variant spellings for a single place are tagged with the same xml:id, which allows us to aggregate and correlate all of those variants consistently, uniquely, and unambiguously. The xml:id is project specific and points to a space. The authority placename for that space may change over time, but our xml:id will not. However, if other projects adopt our xml:ids, or embed them in their encoding, interoperability between projects becomes easier.The Internet Shakespeare Editions tags London toponyms using our xml:ids with the ISE ilink element, the attribute component with the value geo, and a target that embeds our xml:id. For example, the ISE’s ilink type="geo" href="mol:CHEA2" allows us to harvest or point to the mention of Cheapside in an ISE text. The xml:id is also part of the unique URL of each location file in the Placeography. Click on the xml:id to go directly to the Placeography entry. Agas Map Reference: Clicking on Agas map will automatically take you to the place on the map. If the Agas map column is empty, we have not yet added geo-coordinates for that place. It is worth checking back from time to time, as updating geo-coordinates is one of our ongoing tasks. If you know the location of a place that has not had geo-coordinates added to it, please let us know. You can do this easily by drawing on the map yourself and emailing us a bookmarked version of your drawing; just follow the instructions here: Add MoEML Locations to the Agas Map. Other Variant Names and Spellings: The variants are dynamically aggregated from every item that has been tagged with a single xml:id. The variants come from our born-digital encyclopedia entries, our library of diplomatic transcriptions, and our diplomatic transcription of John Stow’s 1598 A Survey of London (currently in draft, viewable upon request). As our library and database grow, the number of variants will also increase. Location Type: This column lists the category to which the location belongs in the Placeography, such as church, street, site, or ward.
How to Use the MoEML Gazetteer
Research Questions

The Gazetteer enables the following research questions:

To what place does a particular toponym refer? If you find a toponym in a manuscript or printed text, search for the toponym alphabetically in the first column. (See search tips below.) What placename should I use in my book, encyclopedia entry, or critical article? In order to create consistency across printed texts and interoperability across digital projects, we recommend you use our authority name for London placenames from the early modern period. Where is a place? Click on the Agas Map column to view the place on the map. Click on the Authority Name or the MoEML id to go directly to the description in our Placeography. Does MoEML have further information about this place? Click on the Authority Name or the MoEML id to go directly to the description in our Placeography. Some locations have GIS coordinates and an embedded GoogleMap.
Search Tips If you are searching for a toponym that begins with W in your source text, look under V as well as W. If you are searching for a toponym that begins with U in your source text, look under U and V. If you are searching for a toponym that begins with V in your source text, look under V and U. If you are searching for a toponym that begins with I in your source text, look under I and J. If you are searching for a toponym that begins with J in your source text, look under J and I.
FAQs How should I regularize a placename spelling in my edition? If you are producing a modern-spelling edition, we recommend that you regularize the placename according to your own editorial guidelines. (Note that the texts in MoEML’s library are diplomatic transcriptions. So far, we have not produced modern-spelling editions, which means that modernized spellings for the non-authority variant forms will not appear in our gazetteer. Only the authority name is modernized in our gazetteer.) How did you determine the authority name and standard spelling? In some cases, the placename has remained consistent for centuries (e.g., Cheapside). In other cases, we have turned to Ekwall or other secondary sources. In special cases, we explain our rationale for the authority name in the Placeography entry.
Contribute to the MoEML Gazetteer

The more name variants — whether a variant spelling or an alternate name — the gazetteer includes, the more useful it will become as a tool for researchers. Thus, if you come across a variant for a London placename that we have not yet included in our list of variants, please contact us, and we’ll add it to the gazetteer.

Adopt MoEML’s Authority Names in Your Project

As mentioned above, we are the first project to produce a gazetteer for early modern London. By creating a standard for placenames, we allow for greater interoperability across digital projects that include a geographic component on early modern London. We recommend that you adopt our authority names in your project, whether it is a piece of secondary criticism, an edition of an early text, or a digital project. Email us, if you have any questions about how to do this.

We are interested in working with other projects to embed our gazetteer as a geocoding tool. Please contact Project Director, Janelle Jenstad, if you have a large data set and/or want to use our gazetteer for data mining toponyms.