Prosopography

Last updated

Prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a group of people, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable. Research subjects are analysed by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line analysis. [1] The discipline is considered to be one of the auxiliary sciences of history.

Contents

History

British historian Lawrence Stone (1919–1999) brought the term to general attention in an explanatory article in 1971, although it had been used as early as 1897 with the publication of the Prosopographia Imperii Romani by German scholars. [1] The word is drawn from the figure of prosopopeia in classical rhetoric, introduced by Quintilian, in which an absent or imagined person is figured forth—the "face created" as the Greek suggests—in words, as if present.

Stone noted two uses of prosopography as an historian's tool, in uncovering deeper interests and connections beneath the superficial rhetoric of politics, to examine the structure of the political machine and in analysing the changing roles in society of status groups—holders of offices, members of associations—and assessing social mobility through family origins and social connections of recruits to those offices or memberships. "Invented as a tool of political history", Stone observed, "it is now being increasingly employed by the social historians". [2]

Overview

Prosopographical research has the goal of learning about patterns of relationships and activities through the study of collective biography; it collects and analyses statistically relevant quantities of biographical data about a well-defined group of individuals. The technique is used for studying many pre-modern societies.

The nature of prosopographical research has developed. In his 1971 essay, Lawrence Stone discussed an "older" form of prosopography which was principally concerned with well-known social elites, many of whom were already historical figures. Their genealogies were well researched and social webs and kinship linking could be traced, allowing a prosopography of a "power elite" to emerge. Prominent examples which Stone drew upon were the work of Charles A. Beard and Sir Lewis Namier. [3]

Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913) offered an explanation of the form and content of the U.S. Constitution by looking at the class background and economic interests of the Founding Fathers. Namier produced an equally influential study "The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III" of the 18th-century House of Commons of Great Britain and inspired a circle of historians whom Stone light-heartedly termed "Namier Inc". [4] Stone contrasted this older prosopography with what in 1971 was the newer form of quantitative prosopography, which concern was with much wider populations including, particularly, "ordinary people". [5] An example of this kind of work, published slightly later, is Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's pioneering work of microhistory, Montaillou (1975), which developed a picture of patterns of kinship and heresy, daily and seasonal routine, in a small Occitan village, the last pocket of Cathars, from 1294 to 1324.

Stone anticipated that this new form of prosopography would become dominant as part of a growing wave of social science history. [6] Prosopography and other associated forms of social science and quantitative history went into a period of decline during the 1980s. In the 1990s, perhaps because of developments in computing and particularly in database software, prosopography was revived. The "new prosopography" has since become clearly established as an important approach in historical research.

Data in prosopographical research

A certain mass of data is required for prosopographical research. [7] The collection of data underlies the creation of a prosopography and, in contemporary research, this is usually in the form of an electronic database. But data assembly is not the goal of the research; rather, the objective is to understand patterns and relationships by analysing the data. A uniform set of criteria needs to be applied to the group in order to achieve meaningful results. And, as with any historical study, understanding the context of the lives studied is essential.[ citation needed ]

In the words of prosopographer Katharine Keats-Rohan, "prosopography is about what the analysis of the sum of data about many individuals can tell us about the different types of connection between them, and hence about how they operated within and upon the institutions—social, political, legal, economic, intellectual—of their time". [8]

In this sense prosopography is clearly related to, but distinct from, both biography and genealogy. Whilst biography and prosopography overlap, and prosopography is interested in the details of individuals' lives, a prosopography is more than the plural of biography. A prosopography is not just any collection of biographies. The lives of the research subjects must have enough in common for relationships and connections to be uncovered. Genealogy, as practiced by family historians, has as its goal the reconstruction of familial relationships, and as such, well-conducted genealogical research may form the basis of a prosopography.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension, the term historiography is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic by using particular sources, techniques of research, and theoretical approaches to the interpretation of documentary sources. Scholars discuss historiography by topic — the historiography of the United Kingdom, of WWII, of the pre-Columbian Americas, of early Islam, and of China — and different approaches to the work and the genres of history, such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the development of academic history produced a great corpus of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties — such as to their nation state — remains a debated question.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald Syme</span> New Zealand born British historian and classicist (1903–1989)

Sir Ronald Syme, was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roman Empire since Edward Gibbon. His great work was The Roman Revolution (1939), a masterly and controversial analysis of Roman political life in the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lewis Namier</span> British historian (1888–1960)

Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929), England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930) and the History of Parliament series he edited later in his life with John Brooke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biography</span> Written account of a persons life

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

Christian Settipani is a French genealogist, historian and IT professional, currently working as the Technical Director of a company in Paris.

Dr Katharine Stephanie Benedicta Keats-Rohan is a British history researcher, specialising in prosopography. She has produced seminal work on early European history, and collaborated with, among others, Christian Settipani. Keats-Rohan is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern prosopographical and network analysis research, which has become highly computer-dependent.

The Prosopography of the Byzantine World (PBW) is a project to create a prosopographical database of individuals named in textual sources in the Byzantine Empire and surrounding areas in the period from 642 to 1265. The project is a collaboration between the British Academy and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Peter was a medieval cleric. He became Bishop of Lichfield in 1072, then his title changed to Bishop of Chester when the see was moved in 1075.

Donald Charles Jackman was an American medievalist and linguist of Australian background.

Geoffrey Talbot was a medieval Anglo-Norman nobleman during the civil war of King Stephen of England's reign. His landholdings around Swanscombe are considered to possibly constitute a feudal barony. Although he was at Stephen's court in early 1136, by 1138 Talbot was supporting Stephen's rival, Matilda. After escaping capture twice, Talbot was captured by partisans of Stephen but was released. In 1139 and 1140, Talbot was engaged in military operations around Hereford, which included fortifying Hereford Cathedral in an attempt to take Hereford Castle.

Manasses III, Count of Rethel was a son of Manasses II and his wife Dada. He succeeded his father as Count of Rethel in 1032.

A prosopographical network is a system which represents a historical group made up by individual actors and their interactions within a delimited spatial and temporal range. The network science methodology offers an alternative way of analyzing the patterns of relationships, composition and activities of people studied in their own historical context. Since prosopography examines the whole of a past society, its individuals who made it up, and its structure, this independent science of social history uses a collective study of biographies of a well-defined group, in a multiple career analysis, for collecting and interpreting relevant quantities of data, these same set of data can be employed for constructing a network of the studied group. Prosopographical network studies have emerged as a young and dynamic field in historical research; nevertheless, the category of prosopographical network is in its formative, initial phase and as a consequence it is hard to view as a stable and defined notion in history and beyond social network analysis. See also narrative network.

Sybil was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman in 12th-century England. Her parentage is unclear, but her first marriage to Pain fitzJohn is well attested. Through her marriage, Sybil transferred lands in several shires to her husband, including lands around Ludlow Castle and the castle itself. After Pain's death in 1137, Sybil attempted to retain control of Ludlow and her lands but in 1139 King Stephen of England married her to Josce de Dinan, who died in 1166. Sybil had two daughters with Pain, and is probably the mother of Josce's two daughters also. Sybil's marriage to Josce, and his control of Ludlow in right of his wife forms the background to a medieval Welsh romance, Fouke le Fitz Waryn.

The prosopography of ancient Rome is an approach to classical studies and ancient history that focuses on family connections, political alliances, and social networks in ancient Rome. The methodology of Roman prosopography involves defining a group for study—often the social ranking called ordo in Latin, as of senators and equestrians—then collecting and analyzing data. Literary sources provide evidence mainly for the ruling elite. Epigraphy and papyrology are sources that may also document ordinary people, who have been studied in groups such as imperial freedmen, lower-class families, and specific occupations such as wet nurses (nutrices).

Paul von Rohden was a German-Swiss schoolteacher and historian known for his research in the field of prosopography. He was the son of theologian Ludwig von Rohden (1815–1889) and the brother of archaeologist Hermann von Rohden (1852–1916) and theologian Gustav von Rohden (1855–1942).

The historiography of the United Kingdom includes the historical and archival research and writing on the history of the United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. For studies of the overseas empire see historiography of the British Empire.

Alan de Neville, sometimes known as Alan de Neville Junior, was an English landowner in Lincolnshire, England. He is often confused with another Alan de Neville who was active around the same time but who was a royal forester. It is possible that the landholder was the son of the forester, but this is not certain. The uncertainty continues as to his children, with some sources saying he had four sons while others say he had no children. It is known that Neville co-founded Tupholme Abbey in Lincolnshire.

Hugh de Beauchamp was a Norman who held lands in England after the Norman Conquest.

The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III was a book written by Lewis Namier. At the time of its first publication in 1929 it caused a historiographical revolution in understanding the 18th century by challenging the Whig view that English politics had always been dominated by two parties.

References

  1. 1 2 Stone 1971.
  2. ↑ Stone 1971, p. 47.
  3. ↑ Stone 1971, pp. 47–52.
  4. ↑ Stone 1971, p. 51.
  5. ↑ Stone 1971, pp. 58–59.
  6. ↑ Stone 1971, pp. 69–73.
  7. ↑ The classic early example of prosopography was the series of volumes of Prosopographia Imperii Romani, edited by P. von Rohden and H. Dessau (Berlin), appearing from 1897, which amassed a database covering the governing class of the Roman Principate.
  8. ↑ Keats-Rohan 2000, p. 2.

Sources

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.