The Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations

Created with support from the Provost’s Fund for Instructional Technology, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award, and Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis

The Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval CivilizationsGeneral ed. Michael McCormickSenior ed. GIS Guoping HuangProject Managers Kelly L. Gibson,

Matthew Polk, Ece Turnator

and a cast of thousands, or at least nearly two dozenHarvard undergraduate and graduate students who have worked very hard over the last 3 years…

The geodatabase of 1100 shipwrecks 1-1500 AD displayed in Google Earth

Attribute Table: Geodatabase of shipwrecks AD 1-1500

Bishoprics in Late Antiquity

Roman AfricaHoly Land

Centra

l Italy

Bishoprics in the Holy Landlate antiquity

with the Roman road network

Bishoprics of Roman Africawith the Roman road network

Rome and environs:Christian bishoprics(from written evidence)and pagan temples(archaeologically documented)

The spread of universities in the Middle Ages: by foundation records

Bishoprics, Metropolitan bishoprics, and Patriarchates under the lateRoman Empire, ca. 500 AD Patriarchates

Metropolitan bishopricsBishoprics

Bishoprics, Metropolitan bishoprics, and Patriarchates around 1000 A.D.

New bishoprics compared to 500 A.D.Metropolitan (Arch-) bishopsBishops

The earliest spread of the Dominican Order 1215-30and the Roman road network

Most of the new religious houses were located on nodes in the Roman road network: the investment in transport infrastructure continued to shape religious history 1000 years after it was created.

The rise of the Mendicant friars in the late Middle Ages: preaching to the urban poor and combatting heresy

The early spread of the Dominicans reached as far as the Crusader states but clustered in significant areas:

1. The area affected by the Albigensian heresy and Crusade 2. The densely urbanized Po valley plain 3. Across England

1

2

3Spread of Dominican houses, 1215-50

From 1250-1300 the Dominicans expanded further in southern France, central Italy, central Europe, and the British Isles

New Dominican houses, 1300-1500

In the late Middle Ages, new houses sprang up on Europe’s edges: the south,Ireland, and eastern Europe. 1300-1400

1400-1300

that early medieval monks founded their monasteries as far away as possible from their natural enemies… the bishops who were supposed to oversee them.

A long-standing hypothesis holds…

Archdiocese of Salzburg in the early Middle Ages

Stars: bishops’ seatsRed dots: monasteries

Boundaries of bishoprics

DARMC (in Google Earth display) shows that even in the constrained topography of the Austrian Alps, monasteries tended to gravitate toward the edges of the bishoprics to which they belonged.

Stay tuned!DARMC projects involving religion under way:

Early medieval monasteries

Latin manuscript production, provenance and preservation, 300-800 A.D.

Hagiogeography: the GIS of several 1000 medieval Latin saints’lives, classified by geography, religious & social status, genderetc. (Guy Philippart and Michel Trigalet)

The rise of Cluniac monasticism

Byzantine monasteries

The Christian churches of the Holy Land ca. 800 A.D.

The spread of the Franciscans

The bishoprics of Europe, 1200 and 1400, etc. etc.

Thanks to: Shane Bobyricki Darryl Campbell Emma Carron Nathaniel Donoghue Rowan Dorin Kelly Gibson Christopher Gilbert Clare Gillis Thomas Greene Eva Helfenstein Kuba Kabala Konstantina Karterouli Duncan MacRae Brendan Maione-Downing Alex Medico More Amy Oberlin Matthew Polk Ricardo Salazar Rubina Salikuddin Ece Turnator Janine Wilkinson Ryan Wilkinson

Special thanks to Peter Bol and Wendy Guan, as well as Lex Berman, Ben Lewis, and Giovanni Zambotti