Petrifying Wealth. The Southern European Shift to Masonry as Collective Investment in identity, c.1050-1300
Nombre/Name
Petrifying Wealth. The Southern European Shift to Masonry as Collective Investment in identity, c.1050-1300
Referencia de proyecto/Project Code
ERC-ADG-2015 - ERC Advanced Grant 695515
Investigador principal/Principal Investigator
Investigador principal externo/External Principal Investigator
Investigadores/Researchers
Investigadores externos/External Researchers
Fecha de inicio/Start Year
01/01/2017
Fecha de finalización/End Year
30/06/2023
Instituto/Institute
CSIC - Instituto de Historia (IH)
Línea de Investigación/Research Line
Estudios Medievales
Descripción/Description
[ES] Entre los siglos XI y XIII se hace evidente un vínculo estructural entre riqueza individual y colectiva, por una parte, y la inversión en construcciones imponentes y duraderas, por otra. La extraordinaria difusión de la petrificación medieval ha creado un legado europeo de edificios monumentales y la visibilidad del fenómeno constructivo ha definido la personalidad de una sociedad, la cristiana medieval, de un territorio, Europa, y de la excepcionalidad de ambos. Esta efervescencia constructiva ha sido explicada tradicionalmente como un proceso inexorable, contingente y hasta cierto punto al margen de una evolución histórica datable y explicable, nacido al calor de la expansión doctrinal de la iglesia en torno al año mil. La clave de este proyecto reside en considerar que los ámbitos laico y eclesiástico obedecieron a motivaciones comunes a la hora de “petrificar” el excedente económico en iglesias, casas, castillos, torres o palacios, en lo que fue un proceso global, pero cronológicamente bien acotado entre los siglos XI y XIII. La visión más generalizada tiende a considerar este proceso como algo natural, como una simple fase evolutiva de la sociedad medieval. Este proyecto, en cambio, considera que un proceso que tiene lugar en tan corto espacio de tiempo y en lugares tan distintos y sin relación entre sí, no puede considerarse únicamente consecuencia del crecimiento económico, sino que también implica dinámicas institucionales nuevas, usos sociales inéditos y concepciones ideológicas radicalmente distintas a las que hasta entonces habían imperado la Europa occidental.
El proyecto Advanced Grant ERC Petrifying Wealth busca reescribir la historia social de la Edad Media, haciendo hincapié en la necesidad de reevaluar desde una nueva perspectiva un elemento que siempre había estado presente en nuestro imaginario del Medievo, pero al que apenas se le había otorgado la posibilidad de ofrecer explicaciones profundas de dinámicas sociales complejas. Este proyecto busca encontrar esas explicaciones. Para ello se trabajará en colaboración con el Laboratorio di Archeologia Medievale de la Università Degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, con amplia experiencia en cartografía de construcciones medievales en las áreas del Lacio y de Toscana.
[EN] Between the years 1050 and 1300 the European landscape turned to stone. It was a structural transformation that led to the birth of a new, long-lasting panorama and helped in the creation of individual, collective and regional identities: a landscape epitomising the way we see the space and territory of Europe. The project Petrifying Wealth seeks to rewrite the social history of the central Middle Ages, emphasizing the need to reassess from an untried perspective an element that has always been present in our vision of the period—the sudden ubiquity of masonry construction—but which has hardly been given the opportunity to provide in-depth explanations for complex social dynamics. The project seeks to offer novel explanations to previously unasked questions about wealth, building, and collective identity. The speed, extent, and systematization of the construction of churches, towers, castle walls, palaces, and houses within castles and cities provide evidence of an underlying, if unaddressed, issue. That is, it is precisely in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the structural link can most clearly be seen between both private and collective wealth, and the investment in stone structures built to last. The study of the shift involving new institutional dynamics, but also unprecedented social practices, as well as ideological concepts radically different from those that had prevailed until then, aims to break down assumptions that have naturalized this truly astonishing process while using as case studies the undervalued regions of southern Europe to explore the larger questions. By inverting the standard approach that sees the heart of the former Carolingian empire (present-day France and Germany) as the wellspring from which other “peripheral” territories drank, Dr. Ana Rodríguez and Dr. Sandro Carocci will undertake to bring new light to probe the greater meaning behind the process of masonry building as an investment in social identity in the central Middle Ages.
El proyecto Advanced Grant ERC Petrifying Wealth busca reescribir la historia social de la Edad Media, haciendo hincapié en la necesidad de reevaluar desde una nueva perspectiva un elemento que siempre había estado presente en nuestro imaginario del Medievo, pero al que apenas se le había otorgado la posibilidad de ofrecer explicaciones profundas de dinámicas sociales complejas. Este proyecto busca encontrar esas explicaciones. Para ello se trabajará en colaboración con el Laboratorio di Archeologia Medievale de la Università Degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, con amplia experiencia en cartografía de construcciones medievales en las áreas del Lacio y de Toscana.
[EN] Between the years 1050 and 1300 the European landscape turned to stone. It was a structural transformation that led to the birth of a new, long-lasting panorama and helped in the creation of individual, collective and regional identities: a landscape epitomising the way we see the space and territory of Europe. The project Petrifying Wealth seeks to rewrite the social history of the central Middle Ages, emphasizing the need to reassess from an untried perspective an element that has always been present in our vision of the period—the sudden ubiquity of masonry construction—but which has hardly been given the opportunity to provide in-depth explanations for complex social dynamics. The project seeks to offer novel explanations to previously unasked questions about wealth, building, and collective identity. The speed, extent, and systematization of the construction of churches, towers, castle walls, palaces, and houses within castles and cities provide evidence of an underlying, if unaddressed, issue. That is, it is precisely in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the structural link can most clearly be seen between both private and collective wealth, and the investment in stone structures built to last. The study of the shift involving new institutional dynamics, but also unprecedented social practices, as well as ideological concepts radically different from those that had prevailed until then, aims to break down assumptions that have naturalized this truly astonishing process while using as case studies the undervalued regions of southern Europe to explore the larger questions. By inverting the standard approach that sees the heart of the former Carolingian empire (present-day France and Germany) as the wellspring from which other “peripheral” territories drank, Dr. Ana Rodríguez and Dr. Sandro Carocci will undertake to bring new light to probe the greater meaning behind the process of masonry building as an investment in social identity in the central Middle Ages.
Fuente de Financiación/Funding
European Commission
European Research Council
European Research Council
Publicaciones/Publications
Fecha de actualización/Last update
03/02/2020