Abstract While power is a central concern in medieval archaeology, it is often addressed only implicitly and rarely subjected to explicit theoretical analysis. This paper explores the potential of applying the concept of power as developed in historical sociology – particularly Michael Mann’s power model – to medieval society and examines implicit notions of power in selected historical and archaeological literature. It asks which landscape components carry power-related connotations, how these components are connected to different categories of social actors, what functions they perform within actor-specific infrastructures, and whether it is possible to assess the relative amount of power they represent. Drawing on data collected through critical reading and structured in a relational database, the study constructs Weberian ideal types of landscape features (e.g., villages, monasteries) to represent distinct forms of social power. To illustrate the approach, the paper focuses on the ideal type of the village as a component of power infrastructure across two temporal windows (1001–1200 CE and 1201–1400 CE) and in relation to two social actor categories: secular elite and village communities. The case study specifically examines whether the medieval village itself carried power-related connotations, how its functions differed between actors, and how these differences can be captured quantitatively. It also demonstrates the model’s ability to move from the identification of power-bearing features to a quantitative assessment of their significance, making visible the changing functional roles of landscape components within actor-specific power configurations. This study offers a theoretically informed and evidence-based contribution to medievalist thought on power, with the potential to bridge archaeological evidence and social theory, and to support comparative, scalable interpretations of power in the medieval landscape.
Vít Kozák (Wed,) studied this question.