WHEAT, GUNPOWDER AND DATA: THE SUPPLY OF BARCELONA DURING THE SIEGE OF 1713-1714 THROUGH THE LENS OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES
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Abstract
Current studies on the connectivity of past societies based on archaeologial evidence use a diversity of computational tools. These methodological innovations have allowed researchers to improve our understanding of interaction dynamics between groups and territories This growing adoption of computational methods has not seen a parallel trend in historical research despite the obvious potential of textual sources to explore large-scale connectivity patterns. This work applies a Digital Humanities approach to analyse the network that supplied the city of Barcelona under the siege of the combined armies of France and Spain from July 1713 to September 1714. Results suggest that the traditional image of a desperate and isolated Barcelona resisting alone is not accurate as the city generated a complex connectivity network with other imperial territories to secure its supply and conduct a successful defense during months. This standoff was broken after the Bourbon powers raced to deploy new ships of the line to effectively blockade the city in July 1714, thus allowing the final defeat of Barcelona two months later. Beyond this case study, this work presents a methodology to study infer complex connectivity dynamics from textual sources by combining three computational tools: text annotation, Geographical Information Systems, and data visualization.