Objective In 380 CE, the Emperor Theodosius (d. 395) ordered all Roman subjects to follow Catholic Christianity and limited imperial patronage to the Catholic Church. Theodosius was the last ruler to reign over a united empire. At his death the realm was divided into two halves, and by the end of Gregory the Great’s papacy (d. 604), a mosaic of independent kingdoms had replaced the western part of the empire. Yet despite the political division, during this period western clerics built a supra-regional ecclesiastical structure with substantial levels of hierarchy and cohesion.Up to the 1950s historians have largely conceived of these ecclesiastical institutions as organizations with widely accepted power. More recent scholarship, however, has revealed the social origin and fallibility of clerical authority. Nonetheless, this move away from the study of institutions has left unanswered the fundamental questions of how a ‘universal’ church was built at a time of political fragmentation, and how the transition from informal mutual aid to more formal hierarchical structures of law- and policy-making came about.With innovative methods of social inquiry we can offer new answers to these historiographical questions. Our project (CONNEC) will use social network analysis and new institutional theory to trace four processes: how clerical networks adapted to the new secular contexts, how these interactions shaped the development of ecclesiastical law, how clerics constructed and disseminated discourses that supported different structures of the church, and how networks fostered compliance and a sense of accountability among clerics. CONNEC’s use of state-of-the-art methods will be enhanced by the implementation of cutting-edge digital technologies, adapting network analysis software for late antique sources. By bringing together digital tools with qualitative textual analysis, CONNEC will provide a more nuanced understanding of a key process of world history. Fields of science natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwarehumanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryhumanitiesphilosophy, ethics and religionreligionschristianitysocial scienceslaw Keywords History of Late Antiquity History of the Christian Church Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2017-STG - ERC Starting Grant Call for proposal ERC-2017-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Host institution ROYAL HOLLOWAY AND BEDFORD NEW COLLEGE Net EU contribution € 1 333 336,00 Address EGHAM HILL UNIVERSITY OF LONDON TW20 0EX Egham United Kingdom See on map Region South East (England) Surrey, East and West Sussex West Surrey Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 333 336,00 Beneficiaries (2) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all ROYAL HOLLOWAY AND BEDFORD NEW COLLEGE United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 1 333 336,00 Address EGHAM HILL UNIVERSITY OF LONDON TW20 0EX Egham See on map Region South East (England) Surrey, East and West Sussex West Surrey Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 333 336,00 OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN Austria Net EU contribution € 131 980,00 Address DR. IGNAZ SEIPEL-PLATZ 2 1010 Wien See on map Region Ostösterreich Wien Wien Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 131 980,00