An agent-based model for exploring the combined effects of social and demographic changes on the concentration and hierarchy of rural settlement patterns in North-Western Europe during the Middle Ages (800–1200 CE)

Résumé En

Rural settlement patterns in North-Western Europe in 800 CE were scattered and impermanent. By 1200 they had become much more concentrated and enduring. Although this phenomenon occurred in all regions, settlement concentration and hierarchy differed widely. In this paper, we seek to better understand how the processes influencing the concentration and hierarchy of rural settlement patterns might act in different ways. To do this, we build an agent-based model entitled SimFeodal that simulates their combined effects on the relocation of peasant households from 800 to 1200. Our research objective is to determine how certain social and demographic variables interacted with the processes modelled to produce different regional settlement patterns. We simulate a series of 15 scenarios with SimFeodal on the basis of data available for the diocese of Tours (France). The results show that demographic growth was not the primary cause of increasing settlement hierarchy. However, introducing demographic growth into the simulated scenarios yields simulation results that better match the empirical data. Interestingly, the size of villages and small towns in 800, the proportion of peasant households relocating only locally and the power of village communities do not seem to influence concentration and hierarchy in the simulated patterns.