Given these limitations, they likely prioritized efficiency. Their attention naturally fell on individuals with dominant social status and public influence—roles overwhelmingly held by men. This is our hypothesis, of course. Thanks a lot for your interests in our work!

The focus on men is likely a reflection of a pragmatic approach grounded on social expectations about each gender’s role at the time. Inquisitors were not trained detectives or legal experts; they were churchmen operating under time constraints, often needing to conclude processes within weeks.

It remains to be seen how representative this finding is of the methods of medieval inquisitors more broadly. However, it reveals a critical weakness in the inquisitorial process: a potential systematic blind spot that led investigators to underestimate a fundamental segment of society—its women.

This finding may seem contrary to present-day expectations. However, the feudal system relegated women to secondary status. Thus, their institutional invisibility may have paradoxically worked in their favor within the legal context of the Inquisition—at least until the advent of the witch craze.

Using two approaches—the weight of each gender's denunciations on the trial's outcome and the sequence of hearings—we found that inquisitor A. of Castellario showed no greater interest in women. He focused predominantly on men, despite evidence of active, committed women in the Waldensian community.

I couldn't agree more. Scholars should write a manifesto in favor of slowness.

A 2nd issue is lack of pause. Reflecting is a crucial part of our job but increasingly a luxury. Scanning abstracts helps, but I found revisiting books I read in a rush as an undergrad more useful. It helps set priorities and resist the pressure to publish yet another predictable paper to stay ahead

A growing trend in SSCC is prioritizing methods while treating RQs as an afterthought. We no longer train to think holistically but rather in sector-/method-specific ways. I ask myself: if we can only come up with the same naïve questions as say engineers do, what value do we bring to the table?

Great post, @jsaramak.bsky.social. It’s always great when someone with experience pulls back the curtain on the business for those who are less experienced. As a social scientist, I’d like to add a couple of thoughts.

Besides offering a stark portrait of Spain's intra-history (below is an excerpt from one of the book’s final passages), the book raises uncomfortable yet necessary questions: Should we accept victims' testimonies (the witness's blackmail), or should historians/scholars be allowed to contradict them?

El Impostor invites readers to identify with Enric Marco, a man who, driven by a thirst for praise, falsely claimed to be a Nazi camp prisoner. Cercas then reveals that Marco's lie was not an exception but merely an exaggerated version of the narratives many others were crafting about themselves.

Unfortunately, the tactics pioneered by inquisitors still echo in contemporary organizations (see our references to China and Russia). So, understanding their strengths and limitations is key. As Tzvetan Todorov noted, understanding evil is not about justifying it, but helping prevent its return.

Some historians have wondered how heretic groups survived centuries of persecution. Our tentative answer: the Church’s interrogation methods targeted family-based solidarity, but local social structures limited their impact, showing that the medieval Inquisition was ill-equipped to suppress heresy.

Using DyNAMs (actor-oriented REMs), we examine how deponents acted throughout the trial. As the inquisitor increased pressure, they became more likely to denounce social contacts. Still, they tried to protect others by targeting those already denounced, publicly named suspects, or those who had fled

In the paper, we demonstrate the benefits of the extensions using classic examples and synthetic networks.
If you're planning to identify core-periphery structures in network data—especially if you're tempted to apply Borgatti & Everett's model—consider checking out our extensions.
#networkscience

The second tweak: Many core-periphery networks present fractures within the core. However, the original model assumes full connectivity. We solved this issue with the p-core extension, which permits flexibility in intra-core connectivity (the proportion of core members each member is connected to).

Our first tweak was density blocks for inter-categorical ties. Unlike the original method (which often treats such ties as missing), d-blocks don’t mess up the GoF metric. Plus, they allow researchers to set a minimum acceptable density, adding control over an extra feature of the partition sought.