  One of the defining representations of women from medieval times is in the
role of peace-weaver, that is, a woman was expected to 'weave' peace between
warring men. The underlying assumption in scholarship on this topic is that
female mediation lessens male violence. This stance can however be questioned
since it may be the result of gender-based peace and diplomacy models that
relegate women's roles to that of conduits between men. By analyzing the
concept of communicability and relevance of certain nodes in complex networks
we show how our sources afford women more complex and nuanced social roles. As
a case study we consider a historical narrative, namely Bede's "Ecclesiastical
History of the English People", which is a history of Britain from the first to
eighth centuries AD and was immensely popular all over Europe in the Middle
Ages.
