Search Papal Spoils Index

The Right of Spoil of the Popes of Avignon 1316 – 1415

Search Index

These search engines search fields in the tables that make up the Index of Persons in different kinds of ways. They do not search the cases themselves. We are thinking of implementing a search engine for cases, but in the meantime the best way to search the contents of a case is to open the cases page in your browser and search by using the browser’s search engine.

Except for Any Data and Select Distinct Values, which are described at the end of the list, the searches return a truncated version of the index entry with the ID, the given name, the first surname if any, and any other field that might contain the data sought, in parentheses. The ID number is linked to the index entry, where the case numbers can be found linked to the case itself. (Some patience is necessary when linking to the index; there are many anchors to look through.)

The searches are in string form; Boolean searching is not implemented. Searches can contain any alphanumeric characters in the utf-8 character set. The search engines do a pretty good job with normalized characters that have diacritics in the database. Thus, entering ‘Macon’ will return all instances of ‘Mâcon’. (There are a few that they miss. ‘Dakovo’ does not return ‘Đakovo’.) Since the data is broken down quite finely into fields and searches are by field, searches of more than a word or two are likely to produce no hits. Since most of the searches search more than one table, duplicate results will occur if there are any differences in the data in the subordinate tables, even if the difference is not visible in the return.

General Search. This search searches all the fields in the Index that contain text except for the prefix fields. It is good for searching for uncommon words or phrases and is likely to return an unacceptably large number of hits if a common word or phrase is entered.

Please enter all or part of the word(s) that you are looking for.

Surnames. This search allows you to search for surnames in any field that is likely to contain them.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Given or Christian Name. This search allows you to search for given or Christian names in any field that is likely to contain them. It is particularly useful for searching for people who have unusual given names or where the spelling of the surname is erratic.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Places. This search allows you to search for place-names in any field that that is likely to contain them. To find a modern place-name, use the official spelling including any diacritics.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Types of Benefices, Additions, and Occupations. This search allows you to search for types of benefices (e.g., ‘bishop’, or even ‘monk’), additions, and occupations (e.g., ‘merchant’) in any field that is likely to contain them. For offices and institutions, including cardinals, use the next search engine.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Offices and Institutions. This search allows you to search for offices and institutions in any field that is likely to contain them. It is particularly useful for searching for papal offices, including cardinals, and papal institutions. It also seaches the field ‘role in case’. While many of these, such as debtors, are clearly not officers in the normal sense of the term, many of them, such as commissioners, might be thought of as such. Finally, it searches the fields that contain secular titles, e.g., ‘lord’.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Reationships. This search allows you to search any string in the relationships table. It can be used to search for a particular type of relationship, e.g. ‘heir’, or the name of the related person. In many cases, the return is accompanied by the case number in which we found the relationship. This is not always one of the cases that mentions the subject of the entry.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Religious Orders. This search returns the index entries in the two fields that are used to designate a religious order. The first of the fields is attached to the name of the person, where we do not know to what religious house he belonged. The second is attached to the name of a religious house. Use the abbreviations of the religious orders that appears in the Table of Abbreviations, e.g. ‘OP’ for Dominicans.

Please enter all or part of the name that you are looking for.

Any Data. This search returns all rows in a named field that contain data, i.e., is not blank or NULL. The data is divided into four tables, main entry (‘main_entry_rev’), benefice (‘ben_me_rev’), papal office (‘papal_ofc_me’), and relation (‘relation_me_rev’). The last three are surbordinate to the main entry are linked by a field that contains the ID number of the main entry (MEID). To use this search engine, enter the abbreviated name of the field in the box below. All the rows have an ID number, which may be distinguished by putting the table name before it, e.g. ‘main_entry_rev.ID’. Similarly, searching for the MEID in any of the subordinate tables requires putting the table name before it, e.g., ‘ben_me_rev.MEID’. The main entry table contains eight name fields: name1 (normally a Christian name, ___ if it is blank), pfx_name2 (the prefix to the name that follows the given name, such as ‘de’), name2, pfx_name3, name3, pfx_alt_name, alt_name (normally where name elements after name1 are given in the alternative), suffix (e.g., sen.’ or jun.’, or titles that are numbered, such a ‘IV’, in Pedro IV). Further descriptions of the person are found in: degree (the academic degree of the person), order_pers (where the person is known to have been the member of a religious order, but the name of that order is not given with his benefice), role_in_case (why the person appears in the case if he is not the subject of it), addition (such as, knight or mechant), secular_title (e.g. ‘lord’ or ‘king’), secular_place (the place to which the title applies), incidence (where the collection of the spoils took place where it might not be expected). There are fields that give the person’s date of death: pfx_obit (e.g., ‘before’), obit_day_month, and obit_yr. There are occasional notes (note), which need to be distinguished from the notes in the benefice table (main_entry_rev.note). The benefice table has the following fields in addition to its ID and MEID: title_in_ben, rel_house (frequently a saint’s name, but sometimes with indication of place), order (the religious order of the house), ben_dioc (the medieval diocese in which the benefice was located), mod_loc (the modern name of the place in which the benefice was located), three date fields that describe when the person held the benefice (date_pfx, date_day_month, date_yr), and notes (note), which need to be distinguished from the notes in the main entry table (ben_me_rev.note). The relationship table describes anything that connects a person to others in the case. The relation field (relation) includes relationships by blood or marriage, professional or semi-professional relationships, such as exectuors, and predecessors and successors to others in benefices. To_whom gives the name of the person to whom the subject is related. To_whom_case_no gives the case number of case in which the related person is found. The papal office table has five substantive fields: papal_ofc, pope (under whom the person held the office), papal_inst (such as the Rota), pfx_place, and place (the last two giving the name of the place where the office was held). Reference_me_rev is the simplest table. It simply lists all of the cases in the person in the MEID occurs (ref) and indicates in a yes/no field whether the person was the subject of a case (case_subj).

Two search engines are provided. The first searches all the fields except for those in reference_me_rev. The second searches just those in reference_me_rev.

Please enter the name of any field (except for those in reference_me_rev) in which you are looking for data.

Please enter the name of any field in reference_me_rev in which you are looking for data.

Select and Count Distinct Values. This search returns a list of the disinct values in any named field. The return is ordered by the number of times that that the value occurs (including blank and NULL values) in descending order by the number of times that the value occurs. The first item in the return counts the number of distinct values (as opposed to the number of times that they occur). The first one is almost always the number of blank or null values.

Four search engines are provided, one for each of the four tables. Enter the abbreviated name of the field in the box.

Please enter the name of the field in the main_entry table in which you are looking for data.

Please enter the name of the field in the benefice table in which you are looking for data.

Please enter the name of the field in the relation table in which you are looking for data.

Please enter the name of the field in the papal offices table in which you are looking for data.