Gendered networks and communicability in medieval historical narratives

Prado, S. D.; Dahmen, S. R.; Bazzan, A. L. C.; MacCarron, Máirín; Hillner, J.

Gendered networks and communicability in medieval historical narratives

Files

ACS_Version_of_Gendered_Networks_accepted.pdf(525.58 KB)

Accepted Version

Date

2020

Authors

Prado, S. D.

Dahmen, S. R.

Bazzan, A. L. C.

MacCarron, Máirín

Hillner, J.

Publisher

World Scientific Publishing Co.

Published Version

10.1142/s021952592050006x

Abstract

Since the 1970s, scholars have begun to pay attention to the presentation of women in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the main source for the early history of Britain (from the first century BC to the eighth century AD). Vastly different conclusions have been drawn, ranging from positivist approaches which saw the period as a golden age for women to rather more negative assessments, which argue that Bede suppressed the role of women. By analyzing the concept of communicability and relevance of certain nodes in complex networks, we show how Bede’s Ecclesiastical History affords women complex and nuanced social roles. In particular, we can show the independent importance of certain abbesses, which is a significant result and challenges much of the existing scholarship on Bede’s attitude to female power.

Keywords

Gendered networks , Communicability , Node relevance , Medieval history

Citation

Prado, S. D., Dahmen, S. R., Bazzan, A. L. C., MacCarron, M. and Hillner, J. (2020) 'Gendered networks and communicability in medieval historical narratives', Advances in Complex Systems, 23(3), 2050006. doi: 10.1142/S021952592050006X