IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 823: Conversion, Persecution, and Percolation: A Network Theory Approach to Medieval Religion

Sponsor:	COST MP0801
Organiser:	Marcel Ausloos, Services Universitaires Pour la Recherche et les Applications en Supraconductivité (SUPRAS), Université de Liège
Moderator/Chair:	Andrew P. Roach, School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow
Paper 823-a	Evolution of Adherents and Religion Spreading (Language: English) Marcel Ausloos, Services Universitaires Pour la Recherche et les Applications en Supraconductivité (SUPRAS), Université de Liège Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Social History
Paper 823-b	The Invention of a Religious Order in 12th-Century Europe: The Cistercians (Language: English) Constance H. Berman, Department of History, University of Iowa Index terms: Archives and Sources, Ecclesiastical History
Paper 823-c	A General Model of Church Growth and Decline (Language: English) John Hayward, Division of Mathematics, University of Glamorgan
Abstract	Religion is one of the most important sociological aspect of populations. It influences history through the behaviour of society, including wars, persecutions, and group conversions before inquisition and still nowadays. Religions evolve and adapt as seen in the distribution of the number of adherents and their change over time. Preferential attachment and opinion spreading causes and data will be discussed having in mind models of evolving networks and statistical physics ideas.