The Identity and Connectivity of the Heretics in Coventry in the Late Middle Ages : Social Network Analysis of Trial Records
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This paper is a case study of heresy and identity focused on the Lollards in the English city of Coventry, as detailed in the trial records from 1486-1522. The Lollard communities will be analysed as networks of people, and their connections will be modelled through Social Network Analysis. Each suspect will be represented by a node and every known interaction and relationship between the suspects will be represented by a tie. The paper will first introduce general descriptive statistics and demography of the Coventry Lollards with a focus on their gender, occupation, marital status, and age. By utilising Social Network Analysis, it will then explore the importance of the heresy suspects based on their interactions and relationships while taking into account their demographics. Various centrality metrics based on the ties will measure this importance of particular actors and categories of actors. Through understanding the connectivity of dissidents, the importance of actors and their demographic categories can be analysed in a way that goes beyond their heretical opinions. Assumptions stressing the importance of men, older people, artisans among Lollard groups will be tested, and new hypotheses concerning the social grounding of Lollardy will be put forward. |
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