The Medieval Inquisition: Scale-free Networks and the Suppression of Heresy

Details The Medieval Inquisition: Scale-free Networks and the Suppression of Heresy The Medieval Inquisition: Scale-free Networks and the Suppression of Heresy

2003-06-02

arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0306031v1

Physics

Condensed Matter

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks

12 pages

Scientific paper

10.1016/j.physa.2004.03.020

Qualitative evidence suggests that heresy within the medieval Catholic Church had many of the characteristics of a scale-free network. From the perspective of the Church, heresy can be seen as a virus. The virus persisted for long periods of time, breaking out again even when the Church believed it to have been eradicated. A principal mechanism of heresy was through a small number of individuals with very large numbers of social contacts. Initial attempts by the Inquisition to suppress the virus by general persecution, or even mass slaughtering, of populations thought to harbour the "disease" failed. Gradually, however, the Inquisition learned about the nature of the social networks by which heresy both spread and persisted. Eventually, a policy of targeting key individuals was implemented, which proved to be much more successful.

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