Carminabase is an online database of medieval incantation formulae taken from collections of medical recipes and treatises, sermons and the margins of different manuscripts. Carminabase gathers together and consolidates this dispersed data then enriches them with metadata to situate these incantatory practices in a historical anthropological perspective. The data are accessible in a thematic data repository and can also be consulted using a dedicated interface. Carminabase currently includes 236 incantations and is continually being enriched with new data and metadata like textual criticism elements and several thematic indexations.
This project is led by a research group at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).