Community Detection in the Network of German Princes in 1225: a Case Study

摘要

Many social networks exhibit some underlying community structure. Inparticular, in the context of historical research, clustering of differentgroups into warring or friendly factions can lead to a better understanding ofhow conflicts may arise, and whether they could be avoided or not. In this workwe study the crisis that started in 1225 when the Emperor of the Holy RomanEmpire, Frederick II and his son Henry VII got into a conflict which almost ledto the rupture and dissolution of the Empire. We use a spin-glass-basedcommunity detection algorithm to see how good this method is in detecting thisrift and compare the results with an analysis performed by one of the authors(Gramsch) using standard social balance theory applied to History.