The Quest for Origins

Academic Filiations in the Studium Parisiense Database

Abstract

The Studium Parisiense database contains the prosopographical records of more than 20,000 members of the schools and the University of Paris between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. It thus enables us to carry out a wide-ranging analysis of relations between masters and students within the Parisian studium. The network of relationships thus reconstituted provides a considerable amount of information: 1,969 individuals, 2,743 links, and 2,750 nodes. The hierarchical approach, using simple indicators of centrality (degree, betweenness, PageRank), enabled us to qualify the social prestige of individuals by highlighting lesser known but socially central figures. By combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study offers a more nuanced view of academic filiations at the University of Paris, while providing statistical validation for the empirical hypotheses that had been formulated by historiography.