Project description
Revealing medieval society through canonical studies
In the heart of medieval Western Europe, ideas about social norms were encoded in works of canon law, forming a complex tapestry that spanned religious, moral, political and economic realms. Funded by the European Research Council, the SOLEMNE project will explore this intricate web. Specifically, the project focuses on canonical collections, compendia of rearranged authoritative statements, and their role in shaping medieval attitudes. Using an innovative digital tool, it will pioneer the analysis of how these statements spread through society. Studying medieval negotiation of canonical authority, compositional strategies for communicating norms, and the transmission of ideas through canon law, SOLEMNE delves into lesser-known canonical florilegia, broadening the scope of canonical studies.
Objective
SOLEMNE studies how ideas about social norms, expressed in works of canon law, spread throughout medieval Western Europe, using an innovative digital tool to analyse the transmission of combinations of authoritative statements in canonical collections.
Canonical collections are in essence compendia of rearranged authoritative statements (canones) drawn from a large body of authoritative texts. As a genre that intersects with every aspect of medieval life and society [Rennie, 2008], works of canon law, in varying degrees of sophistication, survive in a vast number of medieval manuscripts and address not only religious concerns, but also social, moral, political, and economic issues. SOLEMNE is built on the premise that it is through the (re)arrangement of authoritative statements that medieval scholars articulated the changing medieval attitudes about social norms and societal ideals.
SOLEMNE aims to be the first large-scale analysis of this dynamic process of appropriation and reorganisation of authoritative statements by developing a unique database and digital tool designed to identify and map the transmission of combinations of textual elements. Building on this innovative database, SOLEMNE will study three central phenomena: the medieval negotiation of canonical authority throughout the Middle Ages (approx. 500-1200 CE) to address individual objectives and specific contexts; the compositional strategies to communicate social norms and ideals; and the transmission of ideas through canon law.
In addition to the well-known grand collections, SOLEMNE includes mostly overlooked canonical florilegia in its analysis, expanding the breadth of canonical studies. Through its open access online presence, SOLEMNE addresses the issue of the inaccessibility of canonical sources, while its interdisciplinary methodology offers a wide applicability in the study of legal, social, political, and intellectual history.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistorymedieval history
- social scienceslaw
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Netherlands