Social History of Power

The scholary objective of this research line is the historical study of power during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, with particular attention paid to the social dimension of authority, focused especially on Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

The diverse manifestations of power in pre-industrial societies are approached from four overarching avenues of exploration, or sub-lines, dealing respectively with power structures, territoriality and social conflicts; archaeology of architecture; cultural and political thought; and changing economic and social processes.

Various research projects currently being carried out by the scholars of this line involve such themes as the construction, representation and memory of power, along with the processes of institutionalization and the resources dedicated to it. They examine topics that range from the political actions of different social agents (individuals, groups, estates) to artistic culture, and economic and political thought.

The study of these themes requires the use of both textual and material sources. The former includes wide and varied types of written evidence, such as diplomas, cartularies, chronicles, registers, accounting books, literary works, treatises, etc. Among material records, archaeological and iconographic sources are of special relevance for the representations of power and the establishment of memory, the places and centres of authority, or the hierarchisation of the population within delimited territorial frameworks.

Sub-lines

•  Archaeology of Architecture. Transition between Spanish Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
•  Social and Economic History and Historiography of Europe in the Early Modern Period
•  Power in Mediaeval Societies
•  Humanism and the Golden Age: A Social History