Social network analysis and narrative structures: measuring communication and influence in a Medieval source for the Kingdom of Sicily

This article presents a methodological reflection and the results of a research focus that I have applied to understand the social and political processes present in a textual source. The central issue under study was the interaction among social actors as narrated in a historical text. I anticipated that a relational approach could contribute to understanding narratives and their historical utility. The two main questions that oriented my research were: 1) how can one extract relational data and construct networks that represent the information contained in a narrative source?; and, 2) what do the networks so constructed tell us about the meaning and implications of the social space present in the message? In order to focus on the information on social and political processes embedded in the text, I “translated” a rhetorical report into a relational dataset. The first step in this process required “translating” a textual structure into a sociological construct that I call the socio-relational dataset. The narrative datasets provided a series of narrative socio-matrixes that could be explored using the tools of network analysis. Of these tools, the application and interpretation of centrality measures turned out to be one of the most fruitful approaches for understanding the social dimensions of the text, while measures of centrality and prestige proved useful when exploring the narrative interactions of communication and social influence. This study attempts to prove that a relational approach makes it possible to bridge the gap between cognitive and structural perspectives, and so advance towards an understanding of the social images found ‘between the lines’ of a textual source

Political Manoeuvring in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily: Civitate and Carinola in the Development of the South-Italian County

One the of most interesting documents concerning the social and political history of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily can be found in the first instance in Giuseppe Del Giudice’s appendix to his diplomatic collection of Angevin documents. The document records Robert, Count of Civitate, restoring some lands that Robert Guiscard and Roger II had formerly granted to Abbot Unfredus of Terra Maggiore, and agreeing upon some exemptions and privileges. The edited document, though seemingly unimportant and relevant only at a local level, is not only crucial for the understanding of King Roger’s rearrangement of the nobility and their dominions in the mainland. What I argue here is that it also exemplifies the contemporary usage of the notion of county as a construction of something more than just a ‘countship,’ and rather a cluster of lordships defined by the social role exercised by the Norman count

The Re-Arrangement of the Nobility Under the Hauteville Monarchy: The Creation of the South Italian Counties

The ruling class and the nobility had undoubtedly changed in almost a century since the Normans settled in the south; but despite the existence of new formal polities, the territory that would later form the kingdom of Sicily was still submerged in a quarrelling polyarchy in 1127. In the words of the royal apologist Alexander of Telese, ‘just as the great wickedness of the Lombards was formerly overcome by the violence of the Normans when they arrived, in the same way now it is certain that it was either given or permitted to Roger by Heaven to coerce the immense malice of these lands by his sword.’ It is in this complex political reality that the first step towards the counts’ new organisation took place. But, how did the counties in the middle of the twelfth century differ from the lordships held by the counts when the kingdom was founded? To what extent did the new monarchy employ the creation of counts and counties for either restructuring the organisation of the mainland or rewarding loyal territorial leaders? These are ambitious questions, and in the space available here I can at best offer a sketch, rather than a finished picture. One principal aspect of these questions is nevertheless considered: the changes to the comital class during Roger’s new monarchy