Research project SC/03 (Research action SC)
In the project presented, it is intended to organize thescientific activities concerned in three stages. These stages all deal with national history ("de Zuidelijke Nederlanden" and the Kingdom of Belgium as from 1830), covering more or less the period 1600-1980, and can be subdivided as follows :
- Location and description of archive sources comprising quantitative and serial data. Belgian minute books contain a mass of quantifiable statistical material that has barely been explored. This is particularly true of the so- called pre-State period, i.e. the period preceding that during which Belgian public statistics developed strongly on a scientific basis under the influence of the quantitative sociological studies of A. Quételet (1796-1874). So it is urgently necessary to conduct an in-depth exploration of all the major series of archive documents kept in the General Archives of the Kingdom in Brussels and the State Archives in the provinces.
- A critical evaluation of the statistical data in these sources (external but mainly internal historical critique). Historical statistics cannot harm elementary historical analysis or good sense.
- Homogenization of the material selected and incorporation in a socioeconomic databank. Each source contains figures or allows statistical operations, even though the figures do not all carry the same interest. The principle that the total is greater than its individual parts also applies here. The individual figures, grouped together or integrated in a larger whole, represent added value and speak another language. For instance, chronological series, i.e. series of quantitative data classified chronologically, have attracted the attention of historians working with the quantitative method. Such series offer a view of long-term development and allow us to distinguish and clarify trends and structures not perceptible even to contemporaries. In other words, the project presented here is not concentrated solely on quantitative history and quantitative sources but also on quantitative serial history and quantitative serial sources. The figures must, of course, be sufficiently homogeneous in place, time and nature, with a view to their utilization for historical interpretation purposes. Furthermore, as with traditional historical analysis, statistical analysis must also be applied to quantitative sources.
These three stages should lead to :
- an inventory of statistical sources;
- a databank of demographic and social variables from the beginning of the 17th century to 1981;
- a reconstruction of the Belgian population from the beginning of the 17th century to 1829;
- a databank of demographic, social and economic variables of Belgian municipalities from 1830 to 1981;
- a databank of macroeconomic variables at national level from about 1713 to 1960.
