Word-counts can be used to uncover what the hot topics were at the Medieval Congress in Leeds …
Doing a work–count–analysis is very simple. You just run a text through a site like WriteWords and the list crops up.
What then are the results of an analysis of the sessions at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds this year apart from the 145 times “pleasure” and “pleasures” was mentioned? (Pleasure was the overarching thematic strand)
First of all it is pertinent to mention that the most frequent word was English (24). Paired with England + Britain (22) the slant is apparent. Participants may come from all over the world, but a significant number does come from England and give presentations on such topics as local history in Chester and elsewhere. However it is worth mentioning that Europe also played a significant role, mentioned 23 times.
Looking at perspectives it is pertinent to mention that the word culture may only have been mentioned 14 times. However cultural was used 12 times, making it by far the most important orientation (26). Compared to this political and politics (22), social (14) and spiritual (13) perspectives were much less prominent.
Considering topics, the most important was text(s) (30). This was followed by medieval law (23), literature (21) history (16) saints (13) and finally violence and military (12). Less prominent but still important were topics like crusades (10), communities (10), music (9) landscapes (9) and the Venerable Bede (9). Finally a bit further down the list we find Cistercian (8) and Byzantium (8) mentioned topped off by such locations as Italy, Ireland and Scandinavia.
To sum it up: Anyone in search of a hot topic in Leeds this summer might have focused on Cultural Perspectives on Early Medieval English Laws and their Textual and Literary Qualities. Not that anyone gave such a paper but someone might very well have done…
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Read the word-count-analysis done on the programme at Kalamazoo 2013