BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//pretalx//pretalx.com//spathum24//speaker//C9CYWN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:CET BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20001029T040000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10 TZNAME:CET TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20000326T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:CEST TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:pretalx-spathum24-Q3GFR9@pretalx.com DTSTART;TZID=CET:20240926T150000 DTEND;TZID=CET:20240926T153000 DESCRIPTION:From the 10th c. onwards\, new polities emerged on the peripher y of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE)\, the new centre of Christendom. Endowing Christianity as an institutional system was integral to the emperor’s p ower\, expanding his influence and securing his rule in the new kingdoms. Previous narratives have been generally constructed on the basis of limite d written accounts\, which mainly concern the higher echelons of society\, emphasising the role of secular and ecclesiastical elites. However\, the ecclesiastical and secular administrative organisation of the rural popula tion could not be reconstructed satisfactorily from these sources\, despit e their importance for the stability of both State and Church. \nThe prese nt poster introduces the ERC StG RELIC (Modelling Religiopolitics. The Imp erium Christianum via its Commoners)\, which proposes a complex\, comparat ive analysis and contextualisation of archaeological and historical remain s of the rural population living on the eastern fringes of the later HRE d uring the Ottonian and Salian periods (10th -12th c.)\, exploring the infl uences of centres and networks of secular and ecclesiastical lords\, of th e natural environment\, and of the economic infrastructure. Investigating this often-overlooked segment of the population\, its hitherto unexplored or neglected role allows us to study how (top-level) changes in political and ecclesiastical organisations can be reflected in the evidence concerni ng the lower levels of society and of the local church network\; how diffe rent strategies worked in different political settings\, and what role loc al initiatives/agencies could have played in religious and political shift s. The archaeology of Christianisation frequently focuses on one crucial a spect i.e. the division of pagan and Christian elements\, based predominan tly on cemetery types and some aspects of the material culture. The spatia l contextualisation of the burial customs and material remains\, especiall y their comparative and large-scale analysis\, could potentially bring new narratives about the pagan-Christian transition and the phenomenon of tra nsitional cemeteries. \nThe project uses the OpenAtlas (https://openatlas. eu) framework to conduct this analysis\, with respect to particular charac teristics of object types and burial customs that are relevant to Christia nisation (https://openatlas.eu\, https://thanados.net). In the OpenAtlas f ramework\, the data entry is directly mapped into predefined networks foll owing the International Council of Museums’ Conceptual Reference Model ( CIDOC CRM). The model allows compatibility with different large datasets a nd easy dissemination to the public\, also providing built-in features for fundamental statistical analysis. The system also allows the exportation of data\, which can be further analysed in already existing systems that p rovide more possibilities for sophisticated analysis\, such as diverse GIS programmes or R framework. Proximity\, network\, and catchment analysis w ill be conducted on the site level. Based on the results of the proof of c oncept research\, the relation of the early church network to the landscap e and to the early centres and power structures will be investigated by re constructing ‘areas of influence’ of the early church network\, based on factors (environmental\, political\, social) influencing their site sel ection. The spatial contextualisation of the – primarily archaeological – results creates a unique narrative concerning spatial dynamics charact erising the religious organisation of commoners\, which can be compared to existing historical and archaeological theories concerning the role of ce ntral power and the circumstances the rural population and the local churc h network played a part in the stabilisation of Christianity. \nRELIC’s innovation is supplementing large-scale spatial-quantitative analysis of s ite level historical\, art historical and archaeological data with in-dept h qualitative comparative analysis of thoroughly-researched and published churchyard cemeteries. The spatial-comparative approach will identify the spatial configuration of social and religious networks of institutionalise d Christianisation\, and this spatiality will be interpreted also as a pro xy to the chronology of the process – of adaptation and expansion\, beyo nd the point of view of the elites exposed in the chronicle tradition. Dif ferent regional patterns will point to different dynamics\, hinting at the respective causes\, for example\, different levels of influence of the Ch urch and the secular state\, the problems of centralised coordination\, of gradual or rapid expansions\, how this process potentially influenced the later reorganisation of social structures\, of settlement networks and th eir nucleation processes. The comparative model of archaeological and hist orical data will contribute to a better understanding of rural society and its adaptation to the new social and religious systems and offer a ‘vie w from below’ on major political and religious processes.\nThe present p aper proposes to introduce RELIC as a methodological model that can be app lied to other areas of historical studies with thematic questions\, especi ally fields where traditional historical evidence is lacking. The project is developing a digital database of features connected to Christianisation \, and the present paper showcases the upsides and challenges of the exten sive\, digital\, geospatial database. DTSTAMP:20260415T103728Z LOCATION:MG1/02.05 SUMMARY:A Geospatial Approach to Modelling Social\, Religious and Political Shifts in History - Mária Vargha\, Stefan Eichert URL:https://pretalx.com/spathum24/talk/Q3GFR9/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR