Rachael Haslam
Thesis
‘Trust, Distrust and Local Networks in the Late Medieval Diocese of York’
Supervisors:
Tom Johnson and Eliza Hartrich
Research
My thesis will consider the changing role of social trust in late medieval communities using witness depositions from the York Cause Papers in the period 1300-1500. It will pursue a dual-methodological approach, considering the language of trust and distrust and creating Social Network Analysis visualisations to explore the networks of connection between the community members involved in each case. This research will contribute to scholarship on the understudied ‘dark side’ of trust, which reinforces and creates status and gender
inequalities and the ‘network turn’, demonstrating the possibilities of a critical approach to integrating SNA with other forms of analysis.
This research is supported by a studentship from the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities.