Objective
Modern states rest the control of their territories upon centralised, high-resolution information about land and people (cadastres, property registers, etc.). Virtually none of these existed in the early middle ages, and yet, this was the period when the land-based aristocracies and monarchies of later times emerged. How did lordly estates grow without detailed records of real property? At the time, the highest-resolution land records were the minds of the people that created and inhabited the local landscapes. They could locate precisely every plot and its boundaries, and name their owners. This information was part of a larger corpus of oral information that can be termed “Dense Local Knowledge” (DLK).
The core hypothesis of the LivCad project is that, in the early middle ages, DLK functioned as an indispensable interface between localities and their worlds beyond. Its main research goal is to investigate if and to what extent DLK was a resource that rulers and elites needed to access and manipulate in order to build their power locally.
However, DLK is informal and mostly oral, and thus, largely invisible to historians. How can a centuries-old, immaterial web of meanings become visible? While most dimensions of early medieval DLK are long lost, LivCad’s approach is to focus on people's knowledge of their local space. Fractions of this knowledge have survived in (a) the boundary clauses and the spatial divisions mentioned in land-transfer records; (b) the place-names by which people identify landscape features; and (c) the materiality of spatial divisions.
Taking north Iberia as a suitable laboratory, and building upon theoretical contributions from Geography, Sociology, and Anthropology, LivCad will combine the information from the region’s many surviving charters with the archaeological recognition of spatial divisions and the analysis of place names. In doing so, it will bring to the light an essential factor in the rise of medieval social complexity.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
28006 Madrid
Spain
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.