Application conceptualisation: Francoise Muller and Aurore Francois

Go directly to:
1. Preliminary steps
2. Data categorization
3. The database
4. Scientific and methodological contributions
5. Migration and update

1. Preliminary steps

Two preliminary steps were necessary to create this prosopographic database, initiated in 2005 : on the one hand, the census of magistrates and, on the other hand, definition of the institutional and political context.

1.1. The identification of sources and the census of magistrates

The census of magistrates began with the ordinary Belgian magistrature 1830-1914, corpus on which the initial project focused, before extending to other periods or to other magistrates.

1.1.1. Ordinary “Belgian” judiciary (researcher : Francoise Muller)

Any prosopography requires first to draw up the list of people who will make up the study. A dilemma arose as to the choice of source : was it necessary to work from an official and exhaustive but colossal source, namely the Moniteur Belge or from an unofficial source, less reliable but whose counting would prove to be faster, namely specialized legal journals ? The practical considerations that prevailed, official sources were stripped down to the creation of legal journals in 1843. Although the information obtained in this way was not exhaustive, it was always possible to resort to official sources to supplement them. The list of Belgian magistrates was therefore finally drawn up thanks to the following sources :

  • 1830-1831 : the Bulletin officiel des lois et arrêtés royaux and theUnion belge
  • End of 1831-1842 : the Moniteur belge
  • 1843-1899 : the Belgique judiciaire
  • 1900-1914 : The Belgique judiciaire no longer mentioning judicial appointments from 1900, it had to be replaced by the Journal des Tribunaux.
  • 1919-1939 (courts of first instance and courts of appeal) : Almanachs royaux

It is clear that over time, information relating to magistrates is becoming more and more succinct. Therefore, if at the beginning of the period, names are given, these are quickly replaced by initials. After the First World War, the Journal des Tribunaux no longer systematically informs judicial appointments. The Almanachs royaux constitute a good substitute since they mention next to the name, the date of appointment of the magistrate. Nevertheless, This source has two weaknesses : on the one hand, the appointment date is not always correct and, on the other hand, it does not indicate the date of appointment to specialized functions as an investigating judge or juvenile judge (the date indicated is that of appointment within the court of first instance and not that of appointment to the specialized function). This additional information must therefore be sought in the Moniteur Belge.

The problems encountered during this first phase of the review were of different orders. Regarding the names, this ranges from a simple typing error to the existence of several different scripts for the same name (e.g. : Klensch and Keutsch). Regarding the functions, the main problem was that which arose when several magistrates of the same family sat in the same jurisdiction and occupied the same function there. The absence of the initials of the first name hindered a precise identification of the person promoted ; it was therefore necessary to encode the magistrate under a new entry while waiting to find other sources. As to the jurisdictions where the magistrate was appointed, they were sometimes incorrect, also requiring the greatest caution.

A large number of uncertainties have been removed thanks to the examination of the main archive collection on the subject, namely that of the Secrétariat Général du Ministère de la justice/General Secretariat of the Ministry of Justice kept in the Archives générales du Royaume/General Archives of the Kingdom in Brussels. Classified by jurisdiction, this archive collection is made up of files on appointments to judicial office. The files are therefore classified chronologically according to the vacancy of the places.

At the level of magistrates, the collection contains approximately 430 archive references to consult (only those of the courts and tribunals of first instance of Brussels and Liège have been systematically consulted). It contains biographical information (name, first names, place and date of birth), career path, applications for judicial office, opinion of superiors, retirements, and sometimes indications of family ties and political affiliation. The amount of information varies from file to file and tends to decrease towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Additional sources were used, to be precise : the archives of the attorneys general, court journals (obituary, mercuriales of the attorneys general, various publications), biographical dictionaries, some dissertations and theses.

It should be noted that we had access to the archives of the Court of Cassation and in particular to the personal files of the senior magistrates and this for the period 1832-1939.

1.1.2. The French judiciary (researcher : Catherine Goffin)

The research team benefited from the analysis carried out by Jacques Logie (†) as part of his thesis (Les magistrats des cours et des tribunaux en Belgique, 1794-1814 : essai d’approche politique et sociale, Geneva, Librairie Droz,‎ 1998, 513 p.). The preliminary work of identifying magistrates has therefore been greatly facilitated, subject to the reservations expressed below.

1.1.3. The military judiciary (researcher : Laurence Montel)

The prosopographic study of the military magistracy was carried out from printed materials (almanachs, directories, especially for the years 1895-1914), and archives kept at the Archives générales du Royaume/General Archives of the Kingdom and the State Archives of Anderlecht (resp. serie I 130 and Correspondence from the auditors 1-108 unlisted boxes). Through these sources, 69 military jurisdictions have been created and prioritized, from the Dutch period to the Belgian period, as well as the corresponding functions (auditors, assistants, civil judges). About a hundred personal records have either been created (for specifically military personnel) or completed (for civil magistrates who hold the position of civil judge for a time, from 1899).

1.1.4. The colonial judiciary (researchers : Laurence Montel, then Amandine Dumont and Pascaline Le Polain)

These searches are carried out on the basis of the Recueil mensuel des circulaires, instructions et ordres de services/ EIC (followed by Congo belge) as well as in the Bulletin officiel de l’État indépendant du Congo, the Bulletin officiel du Congo belge, and Bulletin officiel du Ruanda-Urundi but also in the Biographie coloniale belge followed since 1960 by the Biographie belge d’outre-mer. These sources will be supplemented with the archives kept at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (Registres du Service du Personnel d’Afrique, Conseil Supérieur, Registres matricules du Ministère de l’Intérieur, unpublished decrees, individual files).

1.2 Definition of the institutional and political context

In parallel with the census of individuals, it was necessary to work on the institutional context. Indeed, one of the strengths of this project is the consideration of the evolving dimension of data. The study of the judiciary therefore requires knowing how the courts were composed during the period concerned..

1.2.1. The ordinary Belgian judiciary

Several types of tables have been produced in order to conceptualize and provide material for the "jurisdiction" part of the database. :

One table per jurisdiction (tribunals and courts) resuming its composition in 1832 and all changes made up to 1914. These tables allow each jurisdiction to determine at a specific time the number of members that made it up..

A list of judicial cantons, with mention of their dates of creation, deletion and any changes of judicial district.

A final table shows the evolution of the classes of the courts of first instance.

The development of these various tables required the exhaustive analysis of the Pasinomie between 1830 and 1914.

In addition to the question of jurisdictions, there were also issues of incompatibilities, the retirement of magistrates, of the use of languages ​​in judicial matters, etc. so many elements that influence the conditions of recruitment and the end of the career of magistrates.

Significant project documentation work was therefore necessary. This information is present in the database both implicitly (e.g. : programming of the evolution of jurisdictions in the event of research concerning the situation of a jurisdiction at a given moment) and explicitly (documentation area containing the changes that have taken place in the judicial organization).

This documentation even extends beyond the legal world, magistrates being involved in various bodies, associations on which it was necessary to inquire (charities, various administrative commissions, media, etc.).

1.2.2. The French judiciary

The reconstruction of the institutional context of the French courts, about a troubled time, was extremely complicated. Therefore, it has happened on several occasions that a magistrate is in post in a court or exercises a function that does not officially exist or no longer does.

1.2.3. The colonial judiciary

The absence of historical studies on the subject has made the task difficult, especially since the courts can be mobile, itinerant, temporary, etc.

2. Data categorization

The methodology followed to categorize the data will be the subject of particular attention because this categorization determined the conceptual schema of the database. With regard to producing a research tool, the design of the database had to be very precise. The categorization of the data had to be carried out respecting a balance between categories which is, on the one hand, rigid enough that there is no room for hesitation when encoding and, on the other hand, flexible enough to accommodate changing data. It was done in fits and starts and by successive readjustments. The choices made as well as the definition of the categories will be systematically justified and detailed.

In addition to organizing the data into a coherent system, a second problem arose : that of dates. Indeed, much of the information collected relates to dates. Let us think of the state of fortune or the linguistic knowledge which has not ceased to evolve throughout the life of the magistrate. Other issue : the fragmentary aspect of the sources. The dates therefore have required in-depth treatment and significant methodological reflection. Therefore, if we are certain that a magistrate is a university professor in 1853 and that it is also in 1855, can we conclude that it was also 1854 ? What if the time interval is longer ? Where and how to set the limit of what is “deductible” ? One thing is certain : the decision is not up to the encoder. A “neutral” encoding system therefore had to be developed. This system allows the encoder to choose between : effective date, post quem date, and ante quem date . For each "activity" of the magistrate, there will be a start date and an end date. If the encoder is certain that a person starts or ends an activity on a given date, it says "effective date" ; if it is uncertain it indicates either "post quem date ", either “ante quem date” depending on whether it is the beginning or the end of an activity.

Taking into account the above, afirst encoding grid – very theoretical – has been carried out, in the early stages of the project, based on probes carried out in the archives. A series of categories were defined on the basis of which the IT specialist began to develop the conceptual diagram of the final application. Over the counts, this encoding grid has taken its final form ; it is divided into five types of data (personal, socio-professional, policies, relational and intellectual). After a brief word on the sources, the five categories of data will be successively analyzed.

It is possible to indicate for each piece of information included in the database, the sources which have been used (archives or secondary sources). The program automatically memorizes a reference the first time it has been entered, the encoder only needs to select it from a list. The management of sources is developed in such a way that it is also possible to find out whether a source has already been used for the constitution of the database. This option is useful both for the encoders among themselves and for the user who would like to know if a specific archive file was used to produce the biography of a magistrate.

2.1 Personal data

This category includes the following identity type data: noms, first names, Place of birth, date of birth, place of death, date of death, marital status, domicile, title of nobility, honorary title, Awards and Recognition, Languages, state of fortune, religious belief, convictions.

If this category may seem simple in appearance, however, some problems have arisen. Firstly, the sources sometimes present contradictions : name spellings, different dates of birth for the same person, the same for the place of birth, etc. What's more, certain magistrates made themselves known under assumed names (e.g. : Ambroes whose real name was Duchâteau). Moreover, the evolutionary dimension must always be taken into account, for example for the state of fortune.

The computer program has been developed in such a way that these difficulties are taken into account. It is thus possible to associate several names with a single entry.. To take the example given above, Ambroes can be searched either under "Ambroes", either under “Duchâteau”, the two names representing only one entry in the database. It is also possible to prioritize the different spellings of a name. If we find for example five times a name written in a way (e.g. Dupont) and once in another way (e.g. Dupond), both spellings will be present in the database with an indication that "Smith" seems to be the correct spelling.

For first names, it was common for a magistrate not to be known by his first name. Like what is done in biographical dictionaries, the first name by which the magistrate was known, will be italicized in the database.

The presented system for names, also applies to dates and places of birth and death : if several dates or places are found, they will be indicated with the possibility of assigning a “confidence level” to each of them.

Each information is accompanied by a "comment" field and another called "observation" ; these fields will be associated with each piece of information in the database. The "comment" field is used for comments that would be indicated in the source. Comments, as for them, are introduced by the encoder if he deems it appropriate.

The other fields contained in this personal data do not require any particular explanation., their title speaks for itself. A word only on linguistic knowledge and the state of fortune. Most of the time, these two data are known to us through the opinion of the hierarchical superiors of these magistrates. It's always about reviews., which therefore cannot be categorized. Therefore, these two data must be entered in text format. The difference between these two data and the others lies in the type of research that can be carried out.

2.2. Socio-professional data

It was originally planned to separate social data from professional data. We would have understood by professional data : the studies, the position held before entering the judiciary, the course of the magistrate's career, the date and reason for the end of career, and a possible function occupied after the magistracy. Social data, as for them, would have included the membership of magistrates in associations.

The former would have tended towards completeness, while the seconds, given the difficulties of identifying them all, couldn't claim it.

In theory, the distinction between professional and social data did not seem to be a problem. However, the intertwining of professional data with social data quickly became problematic. An example will suffice to demonstrate this : the public prosecutor must be a member of the administrative commission for prisons. It is therefore a social function inherent in the attributions of this magistrate.. If we had followed our initial reflection, we would have had a profession (magistrate – public prosecutor) and a social function (commission administrative) separated. However, it was embarrassing to have data relating to the judiciary in the social. The solution could have been to indicate this social data in the professional. In the case of the public prosecutor, it could have been justified. But if a judge had sat on the same commission, this participation was optional and therefore no longer derived from his powers as a magistrate. So it should have been in the social. For the same commission, the information would thus have appeared in two different types of data.

Faced with these problems, it appeared necessary to merge social and professional data. It also seemed essential to prioritize the information. We first thought of distinguishing on the one hand, the profession (understood as the main activity of a person at a given time) And on the other hand, activities (old social data). Unfortunately, it proved impossible to determine in each case whether a function was primary or secondary. Indeed, imagine a person who before becoming a magistrate was part-time lawyer and part-time university professor : it is only arbitrarily that one would have distinguished the principal from the accessory. We therefore had to abandon the idea of ​​a systematic distinction between main profession and secondary activities..

It was finally decided to subdivide the socio-professional data into three sub-categories : the studies, the professions exercised (inside and outside the judiciary) And the activities.

It should be noted – and this is one of the reasons justifying this subdivision – that the data concerning occupations will tend towards exhaustiveness, while, for lack of sources, those concerning the activities will not be able to claim it.

2.3. Political data

The political data cover all the political mandates exercised by the magistrates as well as the commissions in which they sat as politicians. Also there, it was necessary to take into account the evolutionary dimension of the data. This is the case in particular for mandates which could only be exercised concurrently with the profession of magistrate until the law on incompatibilities in 1848.

It should be noted that the extra-parliamentary commissions in which magistrates would have participated will appear in the socio-professional data (since they sit there as experts and not as politicians).

One of the interests of this political data is to highlight the influence of politics in judicial appointments.

Sources for this item are more difficult to obtain. If the problem does not arise for magistrates who have sat in national assemblies, for the others the sources are less common. For the first, biographical dictionaries as well as recent works dedicated to the history of the Senate and the history of the House of Representatives make it possible to obtain the political affiliation of magistrates as well as information on their parliamentary careers. For the second, the General Secretariat collection only rarely mentions political affiliation. Some reports, however, make an exception by clearly highlighting political appointments. A final source is the press, which did not fail to highlight the appointments appearing to be partisan.

2.4. Relational data

This is to take into account family ties, alliance, friendship or enmity between different people at a given time. We can already observe the existence of “dynasties” of magistrates as well as a certain endogamy at the level of alliances. Recently, a fourth type of link has been introduced : "intellectual connection". This new link has the particularity of being able to connect two people, one of whom may have died at the time the link is created..

Relational data is not confined only to magistrates, they embrace all their relationships : lawyers, politicians, military, etc.

The General Secretariat sometimes mentions family ties or friendships, in particular in the detour of certain letters of application where the applicant mentions his relations with certain influential people or recalls the services rendered to the country by his family. Official sources such as the Moniteur belge indicate the existence of a family relationship or alliance between two magistrates. This mention is made within the framework of the application of the article 63 of the law of 20 april 1810 and, from 1869, of the article 180 of the law of 18 june 1869 on the judicial organization authorizing the King to grant exemptions so that two magistrates who are relatives or allies to the degree prohibited by law can sit in the same jurisdiction. Unfortunately, only the name of the magistrate subject to the exemption is mentioned, the magistrate already in place and their link are not indicated.

2.5. Intellectual data

By intellectual data, we mean all publications produced by and about a magistrate. This will mainly be the books they have written as well as, as far as possible, the articles they have published in legal journals or other.

In 2010, this part has been linked to the references part : the post is encoded as a reference and the encoder will simply search for it.

In order to facilitate their encoding and given the development of document digitization in recent years, a novelty was introduced in 2015 : the url type reference. Concretely, if the book written by a magistrate has been digitized, for example by Google Books, it would suffice to indicate the corresponding url and the user can with a simple click have access to the digitized publication. The same applies if the magistrate already has his literary production encoded in an online bibliographic directory. (e.g. the Research Repository on the Digithemis site) : a link will refer directly to the corresponding page of the directory.

3. The database

This part presents the encoding interfaces, database display and search function.

3.1. Computing solution chosen

The application must be easily accessible, it was necessary to create a dynamic website. Indeed, the possibility of putting the application on the Internet allows users simple and flexible access to data.

In terms of the technologies used, the application is based on the PostgreSQL database server for data storage and on the Tomcat Apache web server for interfaces and data presentation. These two types of servers come from the world of free software. They are also actively used for many small to medium-sized projects by many companies, guarantee of stability and security. Since then, they were an ideal choice for the development of this application.

The development of the application database respects the SQL standard and is therefore portable to the majority of existing database servers. Interface development, on the other hand, with respect to the J2EE format (Currently Java Enterprise Edition). The application is intended to be portable and has been tested under Windows and Linux environments.

The application having been designed with the aim of being used on the Internet, a login and password system has been set up. Five access levels have been created (see the “accessibility” page).

3.2. Entities

From a Database Conceptualization Perspective, four entities are to be distinguished. Firstly, the magistrate, central pillar of this project. Then, the composition and evolution of courts occupy the second important pole. Appointments, i.e. the details of each nomination (candidates, avis, Minister of Justice in office, etc.), form the third entity. Eventually, the sources (also called references later on), basic documents from which all information on magistrates and courts is extracted, represent the fourth entity of this project.

For each of these four entities, the application makes it possible to encode the data and to carry out research with a view to the exploitation of the latter.

3.2.1. The magistrate

The encoding interfaces make it possible to enter all the data relating to a magistrate : personal data, socio-professional data, relational data, intellectual data and political data. Regarding research, three types of search interfaces have been developed. A simple search, one per keyword and one detailed on each field identified in the analysis grid. After a search, two interfaces allow the user to exploit the data. The first formats the magistrate’s main data in the form of a "curriculum vitae". The second presents all the magistrate's encoded data in an exhaustive manner and allows you to save or print the file in pdf format..

3.2.2. Courts

The jurisdiction encoding interfaces make it possible to represent the entire institutional context as well as its evolving dimension. At the research level, there are currently two types : a detailed search offering several descriptors and a search by tree structure “unrolling” the jurisdictions by political system. The research carried out, the data is processed by an interface presenting the jurisdiction, his evolution, the jurisdiction on which it depends, the jurisdictions which depend on it and, Ultimately, the functions to be filled. For each function, the user can display the evolution of the number of places as well as all the magistrates who have occupied it with the dates of occupation next to their name.

3.2.3. Appointments

This part is used to encode the details of a nomination. It involves :

  • The function to be filled (refers to the courts)
  • The person nominated (refers to people)
  • The name of the Minister of Justice who made the appointment (refers to people)
  • The references of the nomination file (refer to references)
  • The date of appointment : single element to encode

There are three types of appointment in Belgium, depending on the type of position held :

  • Function where the minister decides alone, on the basis of opinions given to it by different people : corresponds to "encode opinion"
  • Function where the choice of the minister is limited by presentations made by a jurisdiction and by a political body (either a provincial council, either the Senate) : corresponds to “encode presentations”.
  • Function in which the Minister does not intervene. The person is appointed by election within the jurisdiction itself : corresponds to "encode appointments by the judiciary".

NB : when there are presentations, sometimes the Minister asks for opinions on the people who have been presented. It is therefore possible to have both opinions and presentations.

3.2.4. The sources

Each encoded data of a magistrate or a court must be linked to the sources from which it is taken. We have put in place a system that not only encodes and searches the sources used in this prosopography, but also a system for attaching digital photographs so that the user can refer to the original source during his consultations.

3.3. Problems encountered

The examination of the sources has made it possible to highlight numerous methodological difficulties..

3.3.1. Missing, wrong, redundant or contradictory data

Each piece of data established in the magistrate's analysis grid and in the institutional context may be missing, incomplete, redundant or erroneous. For example, from one source to another, we will see the name of the same person spelled in different ways, having several different places or dates of birth, contain a profession without an appointment date, …

To deal with these types of problems, the encoder can, for the same type of data, enter the same information several times. For each information, it can associate a degree of trust, the sources associated with it, a comment as it would be present in the original source and finally personal observations that he considers necessary to add.

How does this way of proceeding make it possible to overcome the difficulties? Take the case of missing data, for example a date of birth. No date of birth could be identified for a magistrate, we therefore leave the table empty indicating the absence of information on this data. In the case of incorrect data, the encoder will be able to establish a degree of confidence in the information via the field trust and add the motivation of his choice in the field observation if necessary. In the case of redundant data, he will only have to tick several references in the table of references when adding the date of birth. Eventually, in the case of contradictory data, he will have to encode several dates and places of birth by associating sources, comments and different observations.

During a search or when displaying the curriculum vitae of a magistrate, a brief data display will be used. The first line of the table will always be considered as the "most correct" data and will therefore be the only one retained for display..

3.3.2. The question of sources

Each information present in the final database comes from different sources. The main problem that arises consists in making it possible to associate a data item with one or more sources.. In addition, for user comfort, we wanted to set up a system of access to original sources via digital photographs. An encoding module and a query module for references have therefore been set up.

The reference field of the form is composed of an array of sources. In the title, two links " Create " and " Research " provide access respectively to the encoding interface and to the source search interface. Once the sources are added to the table, either by creation, either by search, the encoder ticks the sources to be attached at birth to associate them with them.

3.3.3. The question of dates

Two difficulties encountered are related to the dates. The first concerns the precision and the format of the dates which vary according to the sources and the period studied. The second problem concerns the internal representation of effective, ante quem et post quem dates.

According to the sources and the years studied, date format and precision vary. Here is a list of all date scripts encountered :

  • A precise date : 28/11/1880 or 28 november 1880
  • month and year : 11/1880
  • The year alone : 1880
  • An approximation of the date : +-1880
  • A date in Republican format : 10 brumaire year X

It was necessary to find an IT solution to formalize all these types of dates. Being few in number, dates in republican format are not supported : the encoder must be responsible for converting them via the many tools available free of charge on the Internet.

4. Scientific and methodological contributions

The advantages of this database are on two levels : that of scientific research and that of methodology.

4.1. Scientific contributions of the project

4.1.2. The database

Among the indisputable advantages it offers researchers, the database allows centralization and access to information relating to magistrates and more broadly to the judicial world, or even beyond thanks to relational data. Until then, the biographical information concerning the magistrates had largely remained unpublished and was scattered among works, theses or dissertations.

Access to the database is via the internet, via a secure site at the address : Prosopography (ucl.ac.be)

The database also offers the advantage of indicating for each information, the link to the source(s)(s) used(s). This precise reference to the source is generally absent in the collections cited above.. It is also possible to attach to each piece of information, a digital photograph of the source.

Finally, the database has a search engine allowing the cross-referencing of numerous data.

4.1.2. The list of magistrates

We now have a directory of Belgian magistrates who have been in office between 1795-1814, 1830-1914, and even beyond for some jurisdictions. Previously, this list does not exist ; yet, it represents the prerequisite for any in-depth study of this social group.

4.1.3. Documentation

The information collected for the realization of the database represents an encyclopedic work since it embraces all the fields of the judicial organization. Moreover, beyond the biographical information contained in the database, at the same time, the user will be informed about the political context, institutional and social of the time.

4.1.4. A symposium and several study days

A study day was held on 11 february 2005 at the Saint-Louis University Faculties in Brussels with guest Vincent Bernaudeau, PhD in contemporary history from the University of Angers. He presented the contributions of his thesis "Magistrats et juges de paix en Maine-et-Loire" 1848-1906 through a conference entitled : “La prosopographie des élites étatiques, ses apports et ses limites : jalons d’une réflexion méthodologique".

An international symposium “Les praticiens du droit du Moyen-Age à l’époque contemporaine. Approches prosopographiques” was organized from 14 to 16 December 2006 at the University Faculties of Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur. The proceedings of this symposium were published in 2008 at the Presses universitaires de Rennes.

A study day “Droit et justice coloniale en Afrique. Traditions, productions, réformes" was organized at the Saint-Louis University Faculties on 4 may 2012.

See also the “Publications and conferences” page.

4.1.5. « Tag »

Anyone who enters information into the database has the ability to “tag” their data. In other words, each person will be able to "mark" their data in such a way that they can only display what they have encoded. As it is to be assumed that most of the time, a person will only have encoded information that interests him for a specific search, it can thus easily work on “its” data without having to formulate a complex request.

4.2. Methodological contributions of the project

4.2.1. Integration of the evolving dimension of data

The fragmentary nature of the sources, to which is added the evolving dimension of most of the data, have led to the implementation of a system distinguishing effective date, post quem date and ante quem date . From a computing point of view, a system of standardization of dates has been designed in order to carry out searches with a maximum degree of precision.

4.2.2. Preparing the database for an extension

The database was designed with a view to future extension to other periods or to other social categories such as lawyers. Its conceptual scheme can indeed be adapted to other social bodies.. All of the thinking outlined above regarding the scalable dimension of data is valid for any similar work.. In this area, this research project is a pilot project.

5. Migration and update

In 2019, the application “Prosopography” undergoes a third overhaul. Originally designed for the “Belgian” judiciary (1830-1914), the database had already been the subject of two extensions, in 2010 and in 2015, especially to accommodate the colonial judiciary. In 2019, the initiators of the project want to create a "generic" tool that can be used to study other professions (lawyers, teachers, etc.), on a territory larger than Belgium (e.g. : the various territories annexed by Napoleon, i.e. the current Netherlands, Germany, Italie, etc.) in order to make it a « Prosopography and directory of the judicial world (1795-1960) ».