DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14054561
title: Prosopographia Curiae Burgundicae - A Comprehensive Dataset on over 4,500 Individuals of the Burgundian Court (15th Century)
title: Prosopographia Curiae Burgundicae : Ensemble de données détaillé sur plus de 4 500 personnes de la cour bourguignonne (XVe siècle)

description: The database Prosopographia Curiae Burgundicae was created jointly by the German Historical Institute Paris and the University of Kiel. It brings together material from several research projects conducted between 1969 and 2007. The database contains daily wage records (écrous de gages) and daily expenditure accounts (dépenses) from the households of Duke Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, and their families, which formed the core of the Burgundian court between 1407 and 1477. Fewer than 10% of the original records have been preserved; as a result, the distribution of sources is uneven, and their quality and level of detail vary considerably. Despite these gaps, the database provides valuable insight into court expenditures, including 25 court ordinances (ordonnances de cour) and around 5,830 écrous, documenting payments made to around 4,700 individuals. These records shed light on the personnel employed in the different households, their presence at court, their movements with the court, and the remuneration they received for a wide range of services.

This material documents the households of the following noblement: Philippe, comte de Charolais (132 écrous), later to become duke Philippe le Bon of Burgundy (2369 écrous), Michelle de France (93 écrous), Isabelle de Portugal (656 écrous), Charles, comte de Charolais (853 écrous), later to become duke Charles le Téméraire of Burgundy (576 écrous), Isabelle de Bourbon (460 écrous), Adolphe de Clèves (8 écrous), Antoine de Croÿ (3 écrous), Jean, comte d’Étampes (275 écrous), Louis, Dauphin de France (the future king Louis XI) (6 écrous), Charles, comte de Nevers (4 écrous), Marie de Bourgogne (82 écrous), Marguerite d’York (313 écrous).

The data were exported from a legacy FileMaker 7 database. Because FileMaker exports reflect the structure of the layout rather than the underlying relational tables, the resulting CSV files may contain fields drawn from several tables, duplicated columns, or fields whose names were not clearly identifiable. Such artefacts are typical of FileMaker exports and have been preserved to ensure the completeness of the original data. Only a small number of purely technical or statistical fields—unrelated to the historical content—were removed during cleaning. Users should take these characteristics into account when working with the dataset and adjust their data handling as needed. Dates follow the format yyyy.mm.dd.

This dataset provides access to nine tables in CSV (UTF-8) format.

1. The table “Catalogue” contains all individuals mentioned in the database. It includes 4,771 entries in total. Each entry refers to one person and brings together their occurrences across the different tables of the database. The table contains 25 columns that compile available biographical information as well as details on functions and associated households. Among these columns are:



the ID number (ID) of each individual,

the first name of the individual (Prenom),

the family name including potential spelling variances (Nom avec variances),

the position the individual occupied (Position),

additional remarks (Remarques).


Other columns provide information on the years in which the person appears in the surviving records (ordonnances and écrous), as well as data on household affiliation or employment. Some of this information also appears in the tables Personnel and Hotes, reflecting the linked structure of the original database.

2. The table “Ecrous”, the most extensive table in the dataset, contains all individual entries recording expenses and wages of any kind for each household of the court. It comprises 5,848 expense records, resulting in 455,149 rows and 62 columns. The high number of columns is due to the FileMaker structure: this table also includes information that, in a more strictly relational system, would be stored in separate tables (e.g. the accountant (comptable) or the location (lieux)).

The main columns include the name of the household, the type of expense (type d’écrous, e.g. gages ordinaires, dépenses extraordinaires), the date (separated into year, month, and day), the sums paid for wages and other costs, the responsible accountant (comptable), and the administrative officers (signataires) who kept the accounts. The table also lists the personnel concerned and their respective wages. Additional fields provide information on the location of the household and notes on guests, where applicable.

3. The table “Hotes” records guests received by the various households of the court and indicates who they were, which household they visited, and the types of expenses associated with their stay. The table contains 13,154 entries across 10 columns. Among these columns are:



the id-number of the guest (ID),

the names of the guests (Nom),

Date (Date),

Household (Hôtel),

Location (Lieu),

an assigned number for each guest per visit (e.g. 4 guests, each guest has a number 1 to 4) (Rang),

the type of expense record (TypeEcrou).


Other columns provide formal information such as the number of entries found (NombreFichesTrouvées), the entry number (NuméroFiche), and the source reference (Référence), which functions as the source identifier. It combines the place, the archive, and the full archival citation, for example: Lille, ADN, B3419, no. 116765.

4. The table “Personnel” records all individual instances in which employees are mentioned, including their ID number, the date of payment, the place, the associated household, and the type of expense record (écrous) in which they appear. Individuals with multiple mentions therefore have multiple entries—one for each recorded instance of employment. The table contains 437,440 entries across 16 columns. Among these columns are:



the id number of the person (ID),

the name (Nom),

Date (Date),

Household (Hôtel),

the place (Lieu) and

their wages recorded in 



livre (Gages l.),

sol (Gages s.),

denier (Gages d.) and

obole (Gages o.),



Colonne (place of the column on the écrous in which the person is mentioned: A, B, C), 

Rang,

additional notes (Notes).


Other columns contain formal information such as the type of expense record, the number of entries, the entry number and the source reference.

5. The table “Offices” records the offices or positions mentioned in each expense record (e.g. cuisinier, écuyer), together with the name of the person holding the position, their wages, the date of the record, and the associated household. The table contains 18,422 entries across 16 columns. Among these columns are:



id number of the employee (ID),

their name (Nom),

the Date (Date),

the household (Hôtel),

the place (Lieu),

their wages recorded in



livre (Gages l.),

sol (Gages s.),

denier (Gages d.) and

obole (Gages o.),



the office (Office) they held,

any additional notes (Notes).


Other columns contain formal information such as the entry number, the source reference, and the type of expense record.

6. The table “Comptables” lists the accountants responsible for writing the expense records. It contains 4,513 entries across 10 columns. Among these columns are:



the id number of the accountant (ID)

the name of the accountant (Nom),

date of record (Date),

associated household (Hôtel),

the location (Lieu),

the rang (Rang).


Other columns include the source reference, the type of expense record, the number of entries found (NombreFichesTrouvées), the entry number (NuméroFiche), and the source reference.

7. The table “Signataires” lists the signatories who approved the expense records. It contains 1,100 entries across 9 columns. Among these columns are:



the personnel id of the signatory (ID),

name of the signatory (Nom),

date of record (Date),

associated household (Hôtel),

the location (Lieu) where the court is.


Other columns include, the type of expense record, the number of entries found (NombreFichesTrouvées), the entry number (NuméroFiche) and the source reference.

8. The table “Lieux” contains information on locations. It includes 6,508 entries across 11 columns. Among the columns are:



the former name of the place (LieuAncien),

the current name of the place (LieuActuel),

the district or region (Circonscription),

the country (Pays),

date of record (Date),

associated household (Hôtel),

any activities or type of stay (Activité, f.i. Tout le jour à, souper et gîte, diners...),

Rang (Rang).


Other columns include the number of entries found (NombreFichesTrouvées), the entry number (NuméroFiche) and the source reference.

9. The table “Ordonnances” contains the ordinances issued by the individual households. It includes 12,263 entries across 16 columns. Among the columns are: 



the signature of the ordinance (OrdonnanceHôtel (OH)),

the textual content of the ordinance (Texte),

the recipient household (HôtelDestinaire),

several unnamed categories, one containing names.


Other columns include the number of entries found (NombreFichesTrouvées), and the entry number (NuméroFiche).

The database is currently being reconstructed by the Laboratoire Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion (IRHIS) in Lille and will be republished with a new web interface once this work is completed. A cleaned and standardised export of the data will also be made available as part of this publication.

You can get in touch with us via the mail dh [at] dhi-paris.fr.
description: Here are two screenshots of the former Filemaker Database

1.) Table 4: Personnel



2.) Table 2: Écrous (2 screenshots)