Project acronym CASTELLANY ACCOUNTS
Project Record-keeping, fiscal reform, and the rise of institutional accountability in late-medieval Savoy: a source-oriented approach
Researcher (PI) Ionut Epurescu-Pascovici
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA DIN BUCURESTI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Summary
The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Max ERC Funding
671 875 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2020-04-30
Project acronym JCR
Project Judicial Conflict Resolution: Examining Hybrids of Non-adversarial Justice
Researcher (PI) Michal Alberstein
Host Institution (HI) BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary In the past few decades, the role of judges has changed dramatically and its nature has remained largely unexplored. To date, most cases settle or reach plea-bargaining, and the greater part of judges’ time is spent on managing cases and encouraging parties to reach consensual solutions. Adjudication based on formal rules is a rare phenomenon which judges mostly avoid.
The hypothesis underlying JCR is that the various Conflict Resolution methods which are used outside the courtroom, as alternatives to adjudication, could have a strong and positive influence, both theoretical and practical, on judicial activities inside the courts. Judicial activities may be conceptualised along the lines of generic modes of conflict resolution such as mediation and arbitration. Judicial conflict resolution activity is performed in the shadow of authority and in tension with it, and crosses the boundaries between criminal and civil conflicts. It can be evaluated, studied and improved through criteria which go beyond the prevalent search for efficiency in court administration.
Empirically, JCR will study judicial activities in promoting settlements comparatively from a quantitative and qualitative perspective, by using statistical analysis, in-depth interviews, mapping and framing legal resources, court observations and narrative analysis. Theoretically, JCR will develop a conflict resolution jurisprudence, which prioritises consent over coercion as a leading value for the administration of justice. Prescriptively, JCR will promote a participatory endeavour to build training programs for judges that implement the research findings regarding the judicial role. Following such findings, JCR will also consider generating recommendations to change legal rules, codes of ethics, measures of evaluation, and policy framings. JCR will increase accountability and access to justice by introducing coherence into a mainstream activity of processing legal conflicts.
Summary
In the past few decades, the role of judges has changed dramatically and its nature has remained largely unexplored. To date, most cases settle or reach plea-bargaining, and the greater part of judges’ time is spent on managing cases and encouraging parties to reach consensual solutions. Adjudication based on formal rules is a rare phenomenon which judges mostly avoid.
The hypothesis underlying JCR is that the various Conflict Resolution methods which are used outside the courtroom, as alternatives to adjudication, could have a strong and positive influence, both theoretical and practical, on judicial activities inside the courts. Judicial activities may be conceptualised along the lines of generic modes of conflict resolution such as mediation and arbitration. Judicial conflict resolution activity is performed in the shadow of authority and in tension with it, and crosses the boundaries between criminal and civil conflicts. It can be evaluated, studied and improved through criteria which go beyond the prevalent search for efficiency in court administration.
Empirically, JCR will study judicial activities in promoting settlements comparatively from a quantitative and qualitative perspective, by using statistical analysis, in-depth interviews, mapping and framing legal resources, court observations and narrative analysis. Theoretically, JCR will develop a conflict resolution jurisprudence, which prioritises consent over coercion as a leading value for the administration of justice. Prescriptively, JCR will promote a participatory endeavour to build training programs for judges that implement the research findings regarding the judicial role. Following such findings, JCR will also consider generating recommendations to change legal rules, codes of ethics, measures of evaluation, and policy framings. JCR will increase accountability and access to justice by introducing coherence into a mainstream activity of processing legal conflicts.
Max ERC Funding
1 272 534 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym LuxFaSS
Project Luxury, fashion and social status in Early Modern South Eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu
Host Institution (HI) FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary It is hard to give a broadly acceptable definition of the concept of luxury, which as a field of study has also been largely neglected by historians and sociologists. From a moral or philosophical point of view, luxury is seen as a form of decadence, although from the economic perspective it is seen as a force that drives development of the consumerist economy. Every society knows it in some form, regardless of the degree of economic development, reserving luxury to elite groups, who show their power and pomp through the display of luxury goods. The history of luxury is therefore, from this perspective, a history of power, reflecting the syncretism of cultural and political thought. Luxury and fashion as components of material culture can also be analysed through the lens of cultural history, since they play an important role in the creation of visual culture. This project proposes to analyse the Christian elites of Ottoman-dominated Europe in the Early Modern period from these perspectives, and to look at how they defined their social status and identity at the intersection of East and West. In such an analysis, the Westernisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeds not just through the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the French Revolution, but also through changes in visual culture brought about by Western influence on notions of luxury and fashion. This approach allows a closer appreciation of the synchronicities and time lags between traditional culture, developments in political thought and social change in the context of the modernisation or “Europeanization” of this part of Europe.
Summary
It is hard to give a broadly acceptable definition of the concept of luxury, which as a field of study has also been largely neglected by historians and sociologists. From a moral or philosophical point of view, luxury is seen as a form of decadence, although from the economic perspective it is seen as a force that drives development of the consumerist economy. Every society knows it in some form, regardless of the degree of economic development, reserving luxury to elite groups, who show their power and pomp through the display of luxury goods. The history of luxury is therefore, from this perspective, a history of power, reflecting the syncretism of cultural and political thought. Luxury and fashion as components of material culture can also be analysed through the lens of cultural history, since they play an important role in the creation of visual culture. This project proposes to analyse the Christian elites of Ottoman-dominated Europe in the Early Modern period from these perspectives, and to look at how they defined their social status and identity at the intersection of East and West. In such an analysis, the Westernisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeds not just through the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the French Revolution, but also through changes in visual culture brought about by Western influence on notions of luxury and fashion. This approach allows a closer appreciation of the synchronicities and time lags between traditional culture, developments in political thought and social change in the context of the modernisation or “Europeanization” of this part of Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 437 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-07-01, End date: 2020-06-30
Project acronym NEGEVBYZ
Project Crisis on the margins of the Byzantine Empire: A bio-archaeological project on resilience and collapse in early Christian development of the Negev Desert
Researcher (PI) GUY HAIM BAR OZ
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary This project proposes an innovative, integrative and data-intensive approach to understand the parameters for long-term sustainable functioning of complex societies under vulnerable conditions. The broad aim of the research is to explore contexts of collapse and resilience in an ancient society with high levels of socio-political complexity and technological ingenuity within a resource-limited environment. It focuses on the Byzantine early Christian urban centres of the Negev Desert (4th-7th cent. AD) disclosing both the triumph of human ingenuity in conquering the desert through large-scale human settlement and agricultural development as well as a striking and as yet ambiguous case of wholesale systemic collapse. To test hypotheses regarding social disintegration, economic stress, environmental degradation due to climatic or anthropogenic causes, and the question of plague the project integrates approaches in the archaeology of households, landscapes and garbage through use of biomolecular, botanical, zoological, geological, chronometric, artifactual and contextual sources of data.
Dealing with societal vulnerability in marginal regions is timely and relevant in a world where accelerating development rapidly expands such problems, previously localized, to global levels. Although it is a risky endeavour to engage the record of past societies to inform the present and forecast the future due to the typically underdetermined nature of historical and proxy data, this project offers substantial gain to theoretical and empirical research on societal vulnerability in two main avenues: (1) providing an opportunity to critically re-evaluate the current state of knowledge in the field based on an extensive corpus of new, high-quality data and (2) drawing more nuanced and informed broad generalizations regarding limiting states for human ingenuity in reconciling social and economic development with sustainable management of the environment and its resources.
Summary
This project proposes an innovative, integrative and data-intensive approach to understand the parameters for long-term sustainable functioning of complex societies under vulnerable conditions. The broad aim of the research is to explore contexts of collapse and resilience in an ancient society with high levels of socio-political complexity and technological ingenuity within a resource-limited environment. It focuses on the Byzantine early Christian urban centres of the Negev Desert (4th-7th cent. AD) disclosing both the triumph of human ingenuity in conquering the desert through large-scale human settlement and agricultural development as well as a striking and as yet ambiguous case of wholesale systemic collapse. To test hypotheses regarding social disintegration, economic stress, environmental degradation due to climatic or anthropogenic causes, and the question of plague the project integrates approaches in the archaeology of households, landscapes and garbage through use of biomolecular, botanical, zoological, geological, chronometric, artifactual and contextual sources of data.
Dealing with societal vulnerability in marginal regions is timely and relevant in a world where accelerating development rapidly expands such problems, previously localized, to global levels. Although it is a risky endeavour to engage the record of past societies to inform the present and forecast the future due to the typically underdetermined nature of historical and proxy data, this project offers substantial gain to theoretical and empirical research on societal vulnerability in two main avenues: (1) providing an opportunity to critically re-evaluate the current state of knowledge in the field based on an extensive corpus of new, high-quality data and (2) drawing more nuanced and informed broad generalizations regarding limiting states for human ingenuity in reconciling social and economic development with sustainable management of the environment and its resources.
Max ERC Funding
1 445 151 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym SocioSmell
Project Social Chemosignaling as a Factor in Human Behavior in both Health and Disease
Researcher (PI) Noam Sobel
Host Institution (HI) WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary "We test the working hypothesis that humans are constantly engaging in social chemosignaling, and that this serves as a major yet underappreciated force in shaping human social behavior. A major component of social chemosignaling in macrosmatic mammals is conveying of social status, namely dominance/submissiveness. We start by testing the novel hypothesis that humans similarly share information on social status through chemosignals. In support of this, we provide pilot data for a ""smell of dominance"". Next, we ask how do humans sample these social chemosignals? We hypothesize that handshaking serves subliminal sampling of social chemosignaling, and provide comprehensive pilot data implying that humans indeed subliminally sniff their own hands after shaking. Given the importance we attribute to social chemosignaling, one may ask why aren't anosmic individuals significantly socially impaired? We test the hypothesis that social chemosignals are processed by brain mechanisms independent of the main olfactory system. In support of this, we provide pilot data implying a brain response to social chemosignals in individuals with congenital anosmia. Finally, we ask what happens if social chemosignaling is selectively impaired? Given the social impairment we would predict following such social anosmia, we hypothesize that it may be a component of autism spectrum disorder. In support of this hypothesis we provide pilot data of altered social chemosignaling in high functioning adults with autism, and altered olfactory responses in children just diagnosed with autism. The latter implies a potential non-verbal non-task dependent diagnostic measure for autism. Together, this combines to a radically different perspective on human social behavior. We argue that humans are constantly chemosignaling, and that uncovering these effects will provide for better understanding of human social behavior, and potential diagnosis and treatments for diseases involving altered social performance."
Summary
"We test the working hypothesis that humans are constantly engaging in social chemosignaling, and that this serves as a major yet underappreciated force in shaping human social behavior. A major component of social chemosignaling in macrosmatic mammals is conveying of social status, namely dominance/submissiveness. We start by testing the novel hypothesis that humans similarly share information on social status through chemosignals. In support of this, we provide pilot data for a ""smell of dominance"". Next, we ask how do humans sample these social chemosignals? We hypothesize that handshaking serves subliminal sampling of social chemosignaling, and provide comprehensive pilot data implying that humans indeed subliminally sniff their own hands after shaking. Given the importance we attribute to social chemosignaling, one may ask why aren't anosmic individuals significantly socially impaired? We test the hypothesis that social chemosignals are processed by brain mechanisms independent of the main olfactory system. In support of this, we provide pilot data implying a brain response to social chemosignals in individuals with congenital anosmia. Finally, we ask what happens if social chemosignaling is selectively impaired? Given the social impairment we would predict following such social anosmia, we hypothesize that it may be a component of autism spectrum disorder. In support of this hypothesis we provide pilot data of altered social chemosignaling in high functioning adults with autism, and altered olfactory responses in children just diagnosed with autism. The latter implies a potential non-verbal non-task dependent diagnostic measure for autism. Together, this combines to a radically different perspective on human social behavior. We argue that humans are constantly chemosignaling, and that uncovering these effects will provide for better understanding of human social behavior, and potential diagnosis and treatments for diseases involving altered social performance."
Max ERC Funding
2 074 206 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
