CONNECTED CLERICS. BUILDING A UNIVERSAL CHURCH IN THE LATE ANTIQUE WEST (380-604 CE)

Project Information

CONNEC

Grant agreement ID: 757860

DOI

10.3030/757860

Project closed

EC signature date 12 September 2017

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 30 June 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 465 316,00

EU contribution

€ 1 465 316,00

Coordinated by

ROYAL HOLLOWAY AND BEDFORD NEW COLLEGE
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - CONNEC (CONNECTED CLERICS. BUILDING A UNIVERSAL CHURCH IN THE LATE ANTIQUE WEST (380-604 CE))

Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2023-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Catholic church consolidated as a supra-regional institution with increasingly formal regulations at precisely the time when the Western Roman Empire disintegrated into a mosaic of independent kingdoms. But how was the church constructed in such a context of political fragmentation? How did the transition from informal mutual aid to more formal hierarchical structures of law- and policy-making come about? By bringing together digital tools with qualitative textual analysis, CONNEC has offered the following answers to these crucial historiographical questions:
1. The structure of social connections played a role in how communication flowed and shaped the strategies for conflict resolution and authority building. Two examples that help to illustrate this extent are Ambrose of Milan and the bishops of Northern Italy and Leo the Great and the Gallic bishoprics.
2. The ability to mobilise networks of clerical supporters often helped to shape legislation to their benefit. Two telling examples are provided by Pope Gregory the Great in the late sixth century and by the North African bishops in the late fourth and early fifth century.
3. Immediate networks shaped clerics' ecclesiological visions, in other words, clerics' views and expectations about the mission and structure of the church were largely shaped by their more frequent contacts. Vincent of Lerins, for instance, helps us understand how contingent clerical divisions moulded alternative visions of the church.
4. The context of political fragmentation often hindered the ability of clerics to impose authority and hierarchy, but the idea of a universal church survived throughout the period, and clerics frequently used unity and orthodoxy to garner support for their cause. The letters of popes Gregory and Leo the Great and Constantius' Life of Germanus of Auxerre, among others, offer a glimpse into the ecclesiastical and rhetorical strategies that clerics used to rationalise and negotiate the context of cultural and political division.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

CONNEC comprised four research strands whose activities have been organised into five work packages.

1. The Visual Prosopography Strand focused on developing digital tools to analyse and map episcopal networks
a. CONNEC’s software developers developed Open Atlas to host and display CONNEC’s geographical visualisation, analytical tool, and database.
b. Victoria Leonard, Alice Hicklin and Becca Grose have reconstructed the letter collections of Augustine, Avitus, Paulinus of Nola and Gregory the Great, including previously uncharted letters (the so-called ‘ghost letters’). https://discover-connec.openatlas.eu/
c. Markus Mindrebo has devised a methodology that combines Network analysis with Game simulations in an article at JHNR (2024).

2. The Ecclesiastical Law strand sought to evaluate the evolution of ecclesiastical legislation in light of clerical networks. Alice Hicklin has mapped the letter collection of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) and written three articles and one chapter on ecclesiastical legislation. Christie Pavey (WP2 and 3) has mapped the connections among council attendees in Africa from 390 to 425 . Christie was awarded a MPhil in 2022, has almost finished her PhD dissertation (submission date, December 2023) and has written a chapter for our edited volume.

3. The Connected Minds Strand explores conflicting ecclesiological ideas.Amal Shehata (WP3 and 4) was awarded an MPhil in 2022 and has almost finished her PhD dissertation, which will be submitted before December 2023. Amal has also written a chapter for CONNEC edited volume. Becca Grose has explored how letter communication impacted notions of identity and friendship in late antiquity, which has resulted in one chapter (in press).

4. The Ecclesiastical Government strand focuses on analysing clerical strategies to monitor and control the behaviour of their peers. I have written two articles (one forthcoming at the Journal of Historical Network Research JHNR in 2023, the other submitted to Gyrea-Aris) and a chapter for our edited volume. I have also finished the full draft of my monograph Blessed are the Peacemakers. (90,000 words) and have written the first chapter of another monograph (Routledge).

5. Dissemination of our research
a. Organisation of events. Sapfo Psani (CONNEC’s project officer) has coordinated the organisation of nine training events on databases and network analysis, five conferences, five workshops and one impact event.
b. The 'Brides of Christ' editorial workshop took place in June 2023, the edited volume will be submitted by December 2023.
c. Participation in other scientific meetings. In addition to our sponsored events, CONNEC’s team members have participated in international scientific meetings in eight countries.
d. Digital dissemination. Sapfo Psani developed CONNEC’s brand identity and website, and managed the project’s social media.
e. Scientific collaborations. We have established collaboration with other teams working on related topics in Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Austria, Norway, Germany, and the UK.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

CONNEC’s methodology has often helped us to get past the representation strategy of the sources by successfully unveiling previously unnoticed patterns of clerical interactions. In doing so, CONNEC has contributed to enhancing our understanding of how peer pressure and ideology helped to establish more formal structures of law and policy-making in the late antique church.

CONNEC provided results in three main areas:
1. Digital outcomes.
a. Research software. Open Atlas has been adapted to analyse and visualise scant and scattered relational source material. This open-source software is now available for other social scientists and for the larger public.
b. Digital database. CONNEC's open-access database of late antique letter collections is available for consultation, analysis and visualisation at https://discover-connec.openatlas.eu/.

2. Publications. CONNEC outputs comprise:
a. Articles. four published, three in press.
b. Book Chapters: two published, two in press.
c. Monograph: one submitted, one to be submitted before the end of 2023, one in preparation.
d. Edited Volume: one to be submitted before the end of 2023.
e. PhD dissertations: two to be submitted before the end of 2023.

3. Historiographical impact. We expect that these publications will contribute to advancing current scholarship on the construction of the late antique ecclesiastical institutions in four key research areas: a) how clerical interactions shaped institutions, b) how existing secular law moulded the formulation and application of ecclesiastical law, c) how a variety of discourses underpinned different visions of the church, and d) how clerics promoted an ideal clerical behaviour and mobilised their ecclesiastical and secular networks to achieve compliance among their peers.

4. Social impact. We have organised one impact event on climate change and institutional fragmentation in late antiquity and nine training events on network analysis and game simulation opened to scholars, students, and the wider public.

Network of letter collections of Augustine

CONNEC's OpenAtlas software