Historical uncertainty in Gregory of Tours's History of the Franks (book 7)

Our goal was to create a research dataset based on geographical and chronological uncertainties in the work of Gregory of Tours's *History of the Franks* (book 7). We used and modified a topology of geographical and chronological uncertainty based on a rudimentary schema that would be universal when analysing an historical source : Chronological :<br> * uncertain dating<br> * uncertain method of dating<br> * lack of dating<br> * precise dating Geographical: <br> * uncertain location<br> * general location (region, country)<br> * lack of location <br> * precise location After working on book 7 for a while, that schema was reworked as those 9 types of uncertainty : Chronological :<br> * uncertain_dating<br> * uncertain_method_dating<br> * event_dating_null<br> * precise_dating Geographical: <br> * uncertain_location<br> * general_location <br> * event_location_null<br> * uncertain_method_location<br> * precise_location <br> The geographical and chronological focus makes it possible to identify where and when, in a source, the historical uncertainty is higher. Using python, that dataset was then automatically cleaned and enhanced with bounding box based on geo-mapping information for the entries of geographical uncertainty. Those were classified as either precise_location or general_location. For example, anything relating to a city general area (like "in the Rouen area") creates a general_location bounding box encompassing the *current* geographical space occupied by the municipality of Rouen (in the format 'LongMin', 'LongMax', 'LatMin', 'LatMax' in a single column "bbox"). Anything described as a unique point in space (like "in Paris") creates a precise_location and its corresponding lat/long system of coordinates. This is an arbitrary way to translate slightly undefined geographical concepts of uncertainty into formal data, but at least it can be fully explained explicitly.<br> Translation used: Tours G. <em>et alii</em>, <em>The history of the franks</em>, Penguin Books Limited, 1974, https://books.google.ch/books?id=4Lx-M2RHGgoC.