Monasteries and social networks in the early medieval el Bierzo region

Abstract

This article analyses the influence of monasteries on the creation of social networks based on the specific case of the El Bierzo region. Six monasteries were chosen (Santa Leocadia de Castañeda, Santos Cosme y Damián de Burbia, San Salvador de Bárcena, San Pedro de Montes, Santiago de Peñalba, and San Julián de Samos) in order to study three different parameters: the social agents that interacted with the monasteries, the shaping of the monastical estates and the geographical scale of their domains. As a result of this analysis, a typology based on the way in which the social networks were organized (monasteries of local scale, monasteries with religious prestige, and monasteries linked to the monarchy), has been clearly identified. Additionally, it highlights the existence of a decentralized social pattern in which the different aristocratic groups coexisted without fierce competition because they developed on a local-regional scale, in which the monasteries served as stage for their power.