MODELING HOUSEHOLDS
SPATIAL REORGANIZATION
IN NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE,
A.D. 800 TO 1100
ROBIN CURA – PHD STUDENT, GEOGRAPHY AND GEOCOMPUTATION
UNIVERSITY PARIS 1 – PANTHÉON-SORBONNE / UMR GÉOGRAPHIE-CITÉS
[email protected]
The WSU Department of Anthropology and College of Arts and Sciences Pullman, November 10-14th, 2014
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
*
3 – The model
With Cécile Tannier, Samuel Leturcq, Elisabeth Lorans, Xavier Rodier,
Elisabeth Zadora-Rio, Julie Gravier and Lucie Nahassia
4 – Perspectives
* Functionnal clustering
Geographers, Archaeologists, Historians
1 – Historical context
Macro scale
3 – The model
2 – The transition
800
4 – Perspectives
1100
…
Frankish Kingdom :
• Economic model based on
conquests and collecting
plunder and tribute from pagan
territories (gold, slaves)
• A powerfull Central Authority
Capetians :
• A smaller kingdom and a
reduced power-base
• A Christian Europe
• A much stronger and wealthier
aristocracy
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Meso scale
Gregorian Reform
Castles
• Increased competition for lands
and ressources between
aristocrats entails the building of
castles
• An increased need of protection
for the peasants
• Increasing number of churches
and priories
• With the consequent clergy
• And thus the dues
Villages
and towns
• From dispersed settlements
to villages…
• … and small towns to cities.
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
Micro scale
Agrarian
communities
More efficient
agriculture
Crop rotation
institutionalization
Clustering around
churches and castles
4 – Perspectives
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
What are we looking at ?
A double phenomenon :
“Polarization”
“Territorialization”
Peasant households tend to
concentrate around attractive
places (eg. functional clustering
and attraction)
An increasingly well defined,
designed and hierarchized
territorial meshing
• Churches & Castles
• Small towns & Agrarian communities
• Mostly based on religious
delimitations : the parishes
(parochalisation)
1 – Historical context
3 – The model
2 – The transition
4 – Perspectives
Aristocracy
The rise of a powerful aristocracy :
•
Central power used to distribute royal estates located throughout the kingdom
 No outrights, but life-interest on it
 Aristocrats were not allowed to sell it, or to give it to their heir.
•
Aristocrats reproduced the same process with lesser lords
•
Aristocrats start keeping those lands as theirs
•
Decrease of royal power and
hierarchization of lords
The exercise of power shifts to a
more local scale
A different arena and different methods for elite competition :
•
Lords used to compete for kings favor
 With the loss of royal power, the wealth is to be taken from other lords
Increase of local conflicts
• Mushrooming of castles
• More resources required : aristocrats
put the squeeze on peasants
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Christian Church
Baptism was the only sacrament, to be received only once in life :
 No obligation to attend dominical mass
 No need for holy places to be placed at regular intervals of distance
Increase of rites diversity and frequency :
 Church attendance becomes
compulsory on many occasions
• Church as a focus of social life
• Appearance of a regular meshing
Number of parochial rights increases :
 Heterogeneity introduced between churches
depending upon which rights they own
• Appearance of a hierarchized parish network
• Abandon of less frequented churches
• Towards a rational
spatial organisation to
control the peasants
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Peasant Households
Christian Church
Aristocracy
• Provokes increased violence
• Increase taxe pressure
• Increase mandatory church
attendance frequency
Peasants tend to cluster :
 Around castles : to ensure protection
 Around churches : to fulfil religious requirements
 Around each others : to increase their productivity and
balance power towards lords
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
What do we model ?
N.B. We only focus on the spatial consequences of this transition
How individual seignorial
strategies affect the
peasant behaviors through
the territorial network of
castles and churches
How individual peasant
reactions affect the pattern of
the settlement system
Self-organization and emergence
in a complex system
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Which modelling process ?
Entities
Actions
Actors with behaviors
=
Agents with rules
Interactions
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Types of social entities
Peasant household
The « observed » agent
• Moves
• Reshapes the space
Lay Lord
The « acting » agent
• Drives the changes
Ecclesiastical Lords
Clustering in villages
(5-10 P.H.) and small
towns (from 30 P.H.) :
Agregates
1 – Historical context
3 – The model
2 – The transition
4 – Perspectives
Lay Lords
Goals
Actions
Gain lands
Gain vassals
Collect dues
Recruit more peasants as soldiers
Acquire more power
•
•
•
•
Show their power
• Build castles
• Build churches
• Grant guardianship on castles and rights
Ensure their spiritual salvation
Give priories and churches to episcopal
power
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
Peasant households
Goals
Actions
Ensure their
• Go to church, pay parish dues
spiritual salvation  Move closer to parish churches
Satisfy their
material needs
• Minimize dues
 Move away from high-dues
lands
• Increase productivity
 Move closer to agrarian
communities and villages/towns
with better services
Avoid being
abused
• Get under the protection of a
powerful lord
 Move closer to a castle owned
by a powerful lord
4 – Perspectives
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Peasant households
Goals
Actions
Ensure their
• Go to church, pay parish dues
spiritual salvation  Move closer to parish churches
Measurement
• Time-dependent rules of
proximity towards a parish
church.
Satisfy their
material needs
• Minimize dues
 Move away from high-dues
lands
• Increase productivity
 Move closer to agrarian
communities and villages/towns
with better services
• Is a function of the number of
dues to pay
Avoid being
abused
• Get under the protection of a
powerful lord
 Move closer to a castle owned
by a powerful lord
• Time-dependent function of
the military power of their lord
protector
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Peasant households
Overall Satisfaction
Religious
• Time-dependent rules of
proximity towards a
parish church
Material
• Function of the number
of dues to pay
Protection
• Time-dependent function
of the military power of
their lord protector
𝑆𝑆𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 [0; 1] = min([𝑆𝑆𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 , 𝑆𝑆𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 , 𝑆𝑆𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝 ])
A peasant household tries to improve his Satisfaction
 Through moving away, when unsatisfied
Moving_Probability = 1 − 𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Peasants and lords interaction : tax-collections areas
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Peasants and lords interaction : tax-collections areas
•
•
•
An abstraction of Lords’ rights over peasants
Defines an area inside which peasants may have to pay dues
Can be located around a castle, or in the neighborhood of a lord
Rent
•
•
•
High
Justice
Banal
dues
Different (pseudo-random) radiuses and picking-rates
Can be shared amongst Lords (rights guardianship)
Can (and do) overlay : more pressure on peasants
Low
Justice
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
The model in practice
A simple ordering…
of complex functions
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
Demonstration
4 – Perspectives
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Why this model ?
From historical knowledge to a computer simulation model
• Simplify the description without loosing the complexity
• Require to describe explicitely the implicit
• Test hypotheses about the effects of the modelized processes
• Possibly, bring a new teaching material for history/archaeology students
• In all cases : a great communication tool in an interdisciplinary context
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Perspectives
• Finishing the implementation : churches hierarchization, ecclesiastical lords …
• Calibrating
the model
• Building use cases
and scenarios
• Apply the model on
various initial spatial
configurations
representing different
regions in Europe
Through automated
processes and
Visual Analytics
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
Why am I doing this ?
4 – Perspectives
1 – Historical context
2 – The transition
3 – The model
4 – Perspectives
Acknowledgements
TransMonDyn project members
Especially : the members of Transition 8 :
Cécile Tannier, Elisabeth Zadora-Rio,
Samuel Leturcq, Elisabeth Lorans,
Xavier Rodier, Julie Gravier and Lucie
Nahassia.
Tim A. Kohler & Stefani Crabtree
for their warm invitation and
welcome.