Information technology and history: Program, dating medieval English Charters, is launched

Scientists from the University of Toronto have created a program which on the basis of the lexical analysis is able to date the medieval English charters. Preprint of the work is published in the archive of the Cornell University, the blog of Technology Review briefly writes about it.

The program analyzes the use of words and expressions in the medieval documents and compares their set with control group of 10 000 charters, the dates of which are known. 

The scientists emphasize that the program is not based on separate marker words, but uses a statistical comparison of the proposed text and the control selection.

The resulting algorithm was accurate. Thus, authors give an example with a document, originally dated by experts the XIV century. Detailed studies showed that most likely it was created from 1235 to 1245. The date, issued by the program, pointed the year 1246.