In this first installment of the series “Before it was called citizen science“, we present the Topographical Relations of the towns of Spain, a collective work promoted by Philip II in the 16th century.
This monumental statistical work represented a methodological milestone: in order to thoroughly understand the geographical, demographic, and economic reality of its towns, the direct knowledge of local authorities and their neighbors was utilized. An early example of massive community-based data collection.
Introduction. Between 1574 and 1582, the monarchy of Philip II promoted an exceptional initiative to better understand its territories: the Topographical Relations, which managed to gather information from hundreds of localities in the central and southern peninsula. Although its scope was partial, its value was enormous because information was collected from hundreds of towns, many of them small, offering an image that was very difficult to obtain through other means. That initiative was born as a governance tool, but today it can also be seen as a historical antecedent of a central idea in citizen science: knowledge about a territory is not only produced from the center, but also by those who inhabit and build it.
The preserved corpus. According to documentary indexes, 8 manuscript volumes, 4,321 folios, and 721 Relations corresponding to 635 towns are preserved. Recent studies on biodiversity have worked with 637 Relations or with data from 628 localities, extracting thousands of records on plants, wild animals, crops, and livestock.
“Intelligent and curious” people. The responses were organized through specific questionnaires and instructions sent from the royal authority. In each locality, the councils had to appoint at least two “intelligent and curious” people, capable of providing “complete and true” information about the town and its land. Experienced neighbors, council members, witnesses, elderly people, scribes, and those who possessed memory, direct observation, or practical knowledge of the place participated. In many cases, scribes collected answers from people who did not know how to write.
An archive of local observations. The questionnaires asked about population, jurisdiction, local history, economy, roads, waters, forests, crops, livestock, climate, health, architecture, customs, religion, and natural resources. For this reason, the Relations are not just an administrative source: they are also an archive of local knowledge about the landscape, the economy, and daily life in the 16th century.
Why are the Topographical Relations a reference in citizen science?
- Situated knowledge. The relations show that those who inhabit a territory possess essential information to describe and understand it.
- Guided data collection. The letters, instructions, and questionnaires functioned as a common methodology to record information in an orderly manner.
- Local contributions. The work was built with data, observations, and descriptions coming from hundreds of localities.
- Scientific value. Almost 500 years later, the Relations are reused to study historical landscapes, crops, fauna, flora, and biodiversity.
- An open tension. While the initiative originated from the monarchy and had a governance purpose, it also reflects that an institution can request data from people distributed throughout the territory, and that those contributions can entail lasting scientific knowledge.
Did you know…? Based on the Topographical Relations, recent studies have gathered more than 7,300 records on plants, wild animals, crops, and livestock, with references to at least 225 species. Responses written almost five centuries ago still help today to reconstruct historical biodiversity.
REFERENCES
Clavero, M., & Revilla, E. (2014). Biodiversity data: Mine centuries-old citizen science. Nature, 510, 35. https://doi.org/10.1038/510035c
Campos y Fernández de Sevilla, F. J. (2003). Las Relaciones Topográficas de Felipe II: Índices, fuentes y bibliografía. Anuario Jurídico y Económico Escurialense, 36, 439–574. Ed. digital 2010: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes / BNE. https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmcs75z7
Sanz García, F., Pelacho, M., Woods, T., Fraisl, D., See, L., Haklay, M., & Arias, R. (2021). Finding what you need: A guide to citizen science guidelines. In K. Vohland, A. Land-Zandstra, L. Ceccaroni, R. Lemmens, J. Perelló, M. Ponti, R. Samson, & K. Wagenknecht (Eds.), The Science of Citizen Science (pp. 419–437). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58278-4_21
Viana, D. S., Blanco-Garrido, F., Delibes, M., & Clavero, M. (2022). A 16th-century biodiversity and crop inventory. Ecology, 103(10), e3783. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3783