Contabilizar el comercio imperial: analysis of early double-entry accounting books with TEI/DEPCHA

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the encoding of double-entry accounting books from the 16th-century Spanish Empire and presents initial stage results from analyzing the encoded text, based on our case study. We selected the accounting books containing transactional data from 1558 to 1560. The encoding process followed the Text Encoding Initiative proposed by the Digital Edition Publishing Cooperatives for Historical Accounts (DEPCHA), with some additional attributes specific to the ontology of the double-entry books. The article explains the method of encoding and describes the unique characteristics of the ledger, such as the format of bookkeeping and the spatial arrangement of information. We adopted DEPCHA’s markup methodology to represent the accounting vocabulary and used the @ana attributes to invoke a domain ontology for bookkeeping structure of transactions. The results from the data analysis focus on three aspects: identification of person names, accounting terms, and checking the balance of payments. The study concludes by highlighting our contribution to expanding new semantic vocabularies within the DEPCHA’s Bookkeeping Ontology, namely “bk: Total” and “bk: SubTotal.” It illuminates the flexibility in name spelling and the preference for mundane vocabularies in the left column of the ledger, while emphasizing accuracy in numerical values and calculations in the right column. We propose further encoding and analysis of transactional records to enhance the understanding of historical double-entry commercial records.