Social Network Analysis of Religious Nonconformism Based on the Records of the Episcopal Investigations of Lollards in Coventry in 1486-1522
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This paper will analyse the Lollard network in the English city of Coventry between 1486 and 1522, as mapped in the registers of the bishops John Hales and Geoffrey Blyth and the Lichfield Court Book. This Lollard network is viewed through the lens of social network analysis, which means that individual suspects are represented by nodes and every interaction mentioned in the sources, as well as each relationship between the suspects, is viewed as an edge. Special attention will be paid to demographic characteristics, mainly gender, age, and occupation of the individual suspects. These characteristics have already been explored within the context of Lollardy; however, social network analysis can measure their relative importance on the basis of the edges and their attributes. This importance of individual people, but also of gender, age class, and occupation, will be measured by degree centrality, involvement degree, eigencentrality, and betweenness centrality. The paper will explore the whole network, and, in the smaller context of Coventry, test statements such as those postulating that mostly men, older people, and artisans carried the greatest importance among the Lollards, or that Lollards mainly consisted of middle to lower class people. The importance of these social classes will be examined as well. |
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