- Stockholm University
Department of History
SE-106 91 Stockholm
SWEDEN
Kim Bergqvist
Stockholm University, Department of History, Department Member
- History, Medieval History, Medieval Literature, Ideology, Medieval Europe, Comparative History, and 58 moreMasculinity, Medieval Iberian History, History of Elites, Medieval Iberian Literature, Medieval Nobility, Medieval Chronicles, Swedish History, Medieval Aristocracy, Medieval Historiography, Courts and Elites (History), Political Theology, PREMODS, Theory of History, Gender History, Authenticity, Translation, Medieval Scandinavia, Historia Medieval, Medieval history, history of emotions, political history, History Of Emotions, History of International Relations, History of Diplomacy, Medieval Diplomacy, High Middle Ages, Late Medieval History, Queenship (Medieval History), Kingship (Medieval History), Power and Authority in the Middle Ages, History of Identity, Kingdom of Castile in the Middle Ages, Fictionality, Medieval vernacular translations (volgarizzamenti), Political History, Political Culture, History of Political Thought, Diplomatic History, Medieval Political Thought, Don Juan Manuel, Literatura Española Medieval, Medieval Spanish Literature, Alfonso X el Sabio, Medieval Masculinities, Borders and Frontiers, Borders and Borderlands, National Identity, Medieval Spain, Didactic Literature, Comparative medieval history, Medieval urban history, Historia de las emociones, Queenship in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Historia medieval de España, Chronica latina regum Castellae, Medieval Bishops, Al-Andalus, Medieval Islamic History, Medieval Warfare, and Medieval Military Historyedit
- I am a doctoral candidate in medieval history at the Centre for Medieval Studies in the Department of History at Stoc... moreI am a doctoral candidate in medieval history at the Centre for Medieval Studies in the Department of History at Stockholm University. I have been a Visiting Scholar in the Departamento de Historia, Historia del Arte y Geografía at the Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain (2012-13), the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2014), and the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University in the City of New York (2016).
My dissertation project, with the working title "Politics of Aristocracy and Chivalry: Ideology and Political Identities in Narrative Sources from Castile-León and Sweden, c. 1275-1350", examines aristocratic ideology and political identity within the Castilian and the Swedish realms -during a period when the sociopolitical structure was reshaped, social groups consolidated and the aristocracy began cultivating the myth of itself as a naturally dominating class- in a comparative fashion.
My investigations are related to the dialectical relationship between literature and society, and I analyse the political language of narrative sources in order to understand how political thinking was constructed and disseminated and how political action was legitimated in these contexts.
Thematically I study chivalry and nobility, the legitimation of power through narrative, normative and historicizing strategies, and the function and political identities of the aristocracy. I consider the ideals and norms that form ideologies and how they legitimate social domination and subordination.
My approach is intended to take into account the context of production as well as the context of reception of the literary texts, particularly with the moment of inscription in focus. In other terms, I aim to acknowledge both the authorial logic and the social logic of these texts.
The use of a comparative methodology is justified by the aim of broadening and nuancing the image of medieval aristocracy in its different 'proto-national' contexts that dominates current research, to step out of the fixed historiographical frameworks and widen the perspective.
Keywords: aristocracy, ideology, political identity, legitimation of power, historiography, romances, didacticism, narrative, courtly literature, comparative history, Crónica de Castilla, Fernán Sánchez de Valladolid, Libro del caballero Zifar, don Juan Manuel, Erikskrönikan, Eufemiavisorna, Konungstyrelsen.
Apart from my dissertation, my main research interests relate to the following broad themes: the history of emotions; gender history; medieval fictionality; and the history of diplomacy (in the Middle Ages).edit
This volume offers insights into the nature of warfare, diplomacy and peacemaking on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, and the influences and entanglements resulting from these processes. The essays collected here emphasize... more
This volume offers insights into the nature of warfare, diplomacy and peacemaking on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, and the influences and entanglements resulting from these processes. The essays collected here emphasize both violent conflict and the brokering of allegiances and settlements, either within polities and common endeavours or between rival entities (such as the taifas of Seville and Badajoz in the fractious eleventh century). The volume begins with an account of Muslim warlords who sought service under Christian rulers in the tenth century and their historiographical fates, and embraces the whole of the Iberian Peninsula, from its western coast, in an analysis of the tightrope walked by the Galician monastery of Oia in maintaining its Portuguese domains at times of bitter conflict between Castile and its neighbour, to its eastern coast, as Catalan and Aragonese merchants coped with pirates and state-sponsored confiscation in the fifteenth century.
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Studies of conflict in medieval history and related disciplines have recently come to focus on wars, feuds, rebellions, and other violent matters. While those issues are present here, to form a backdrop, this volume brings other forms of... more
Studies of conflict in medieval history and related disciplines have recently come to focus on wars, feuds, rebellions, and other violent matters. While those issues are present here, to form a backdrop, this volume brings other forms of conflict in this period to the fore. With these assembled essays on conflict and collaboration in the Iberian Peninsula, it provides an insight into key aspects of the historical experience of the Iberian kingdoms during the Middle Ages. Ranging in focus from the fall of the Visigothic kingdom and the arrival of significant numbers of Berber settlers to the functioning of the Spanish Inquisition right at the end of the Middle Ages, the articles gathered here look both at cross-ethnic and interreligious meetings in hostility or fruitful cohabitation. The book does not, however, forget intra-communal relations, and consideration is given to the mechanisms within religious and ethnic groupings by which conflict was channeled and, occasionally, collaboration could ensue.
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This article expounds on how internal military conflicts and actions-rebellions and civil wars-were motivated in the Iberian and Scandinavian areas during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with a particular focus on the kingdoms of... more
This article expounds on how internal military conflicts and actions-rebellions and civil wars-were motivated in the Iberian and Scandinavian areas during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with a particular focus on the kingdoms of Castile-León and Sweden. It also considers how military resources, both internal and external to the respective realm, were mobilized to carry out these actions. The article offers a comparison of experiences in the Castilian and the Swedish context vis-à-vis social dynamics, military composition, and outside support for contentious politics.
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This article discusses different paradigms for analysis of conflicts between magnates and kings in the period c. 1250-1370 in Norway and Sweden. During the past few decades, the study of feuds and the idea of the survival of a feud... more
This article discusses different paradigms for analysis of conflicts between magnates and kings in the period c. 1250-1370 in Norway and Sweden. During the past few decades, the study of feuds and the idea of the survival of a feud culture into the Late Middle Ages or Early Modern period has been prevalent in scholarship on medieval Scandinavia. Here it is argued that conflicts between kings and magnates in the period under study were perceived as being of a different order than conflicts between individual or groups of magnates, both by kings and by magnates themselves. Magnates were protective of their right of resistance against unlawful kings, and increasingly presented themselves as protectors of the common good, and representatives of the community of the realm. Kings, meanwhile, began to label any (armed) resistance to their initiatives as treason, leaning on Roman law. These circumstances should make scholars wary of ignoring the constitutional and legal ramifications of aristocratic resistance.
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The first part of the post-Alfonsine "Crónica de Castilla" (c. 1300) is partly a vindication of the reputation of Sancho II, the king that is known to have initiated the fratricidal wars after the death of Fernando I in 1065. This article... more
The first part of the post-Alfonsine "Crónica de Castilla" (c. 1300) is partly a vindication of the reputation of Sancho II, the king that is known to have initiated the fratricidal wars after the death of Fernando I in 1065. This article demonstrates how this is a direct consequence of the political identity constructed and disseminated within this utterly Castilian chronicle, and probably a response to certain specific historical and political circumstances in the final years of the thirteenth century. The article also argues the need to view changes in the historiographical genre during this period, also those that transformed history writing towards a more ‘literary’ mode, as relevant to the ideological views and projects of the instigators of chronicle writing. Finally, it questions current views of the "Crónica de Castilla" as an example of aristocratic historiography.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Iberian Literature, Medieval Studies, Medieval Historiography, Historiography, and 9 moreMedieval Iberian History, Political Identity, Medieval Chronicles, Historiography, Medieval Chronicles, Medieval Castile, Spanish Medieval Chronicles, Crónicas medievales, Crónica De Castilla, and Cantar de Sancho Ii
This article explores the manner in which the virtues and vices play a part in the representation of the social order in the work of Don Juan Manuel, with a particular emphasis on the Libro del cauallero et del escudero, and in reference... more
This article explores the manner in which the virtues and vices play a part in the representation of the social order in the work of Don Juan Manuel, with a particular emphasis on the Libro del cauallero et del escudero, and in reference to the configuration of chivalry in Alfonso X’s Siete partidas (2P, Title XXI) and Ramon Llull’s Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria. I discuss how Don Juan Manuel’s representation of knighthood and chivalry differs from that of his predecessors, the moral and ethical notions inherent therein, and its relation to conceptions of social order. The discussion concerns the motivations and aims of these diverging conceptions of chivalry and how they are legitimated and justified.
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This article surveys previous and recent scholarship and theoretical reflections on fictionality, and on the divisions and relations between history and literature in medieval texts. Evidence and examples from scholarly literature will be... more
This article surveys previous and recent scholarship and theoretical reflections on fictionality, and on the divisions and relations between history and literature in medieval texts. Evidence and examples from scholarly literature will be taken from various geographical contexts, academic disciplines and communities. Thus, it is my intention to set out a state of the question, and furthermore to suggest some lines and prospects for further research in this field.
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This article offers an analysis of political language as manifested in the representation of two historical episodes in the Crónica de Castilla (c. 1300): the minorities of the Castilian kings Alfonso VIII and Enrique (Henry) I. In... more
This article offers an analysis of political language as manifested in the representation of two historical episodes in the Crónica de Castilla (c. 1300): the minorities of the Castilian kings Alfonso VIII and Enrique (Henry) I. In comparison with representations of the same events in related chronicles from the preceding period, a close examination of the discourse gives insight into the strategies deployed by the chronicler to offer an ideologically invested version of the past. Conclusions drawn from this investigation are used to discuss the battle for historiographical hegemony, in relation to the struggle for political power between the magnate class (the ricos hombres) and royal authority.
Resumen: Este artículo ofrece un análisis del lenguaje político evidente en representaciones de dos episodios históricos en la Crónica de Castilla (c. 1300): las minorías de edad de los reyes de Castilla Alfonso VIII y Enrique I. En comparación con representaciones de los mismos eventos en crónicas emparentadas del período que lo precede, un examen atento de los discursos aporta información sobre las estrategias usadas por el cronista para proponer una versión ideológicamente investida del pasado. Usamos las conclusiones sacadas de esta investigación para discutir la lucha por la hegemonía historiográfica, en relación con la lucha por el poder político entre los magnates (o ricos hombres) y la autoridad real.
Resumen: Este artículo ofrece un análisis del lenguaje político evidente en representaciones de dos episodios históricos en la Crónica de Castilla (c. 1300): las minorías de edad de los reyes de Castilla Alfonso VIII y Enrique I. En comparación con representaciones de los mismos eventos en crónicas emparentadas del período que lo precede, un examen atento de los discursos aporta información sobre las estrategias usadas por el cronista para proponer una versión ideológicamente investida del pasado. Usamos las conclusiones sacadas de esta investigación para discutir la lucha por la hegemonía historiográfica, en relación con la lucha por el poder político entre los magnates (o ricos hombres) y la autoridad real.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Medieval Historiography, Ideology, History of Political Language, and 13 moreMedieval Nobility, Medieval Political Thought, Medieval Aristocracy, Medieval Chronicles, Historia medieval de España, Historia Medieval, Historiography, Medieval Chronicles, Ideologia, Spanish Medieval Chronicles, Historiografia Medieval, History of European Nobility in Late Medieval and Early Modern Ages, Nobleza castellana, and Crónica De Castilla
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The Castilian fourteenth-century author Don Juan Manuel is most renowned for his frame-tale collection of exempla, the 'Conde Lucanor' (1335), but he wrote numerous works of fiction and history, always in a didactic vein. This article... more
The Castilian fourteenth-century author Don Juan Manuel is most renowned for his frame-tale collection of exempla, the 'Conde Lucanor' (1335), but he wrote numerous works of fiction and history, always in a didactic vein. This article examines certain ‘reality elements’ in the fictional and historical tales of the 'Conde Lucanor' and other works of its author, principally the use of autofiction and the insertion of historical figures in a fictional setting or their use in such a mode. This topic is approached through wider discussions about the distinction between allegorical and historical truth in Juan Manuel’s work, the discursive common ground between medieval history and fiction in terms of their plausibility, and the notion of the purported self-referentiality of fiction. It is argued that autofictional and other reality elements are not so much an attempt to verify or authenticate otherwise fictional narratives, as it is a conscious play on the common ground of the historical and the fictional mode, and part of a cohesive didactic strategy on the part of the author in question – interconnected with his social and political position in fourteenth-century Castile.
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When kings are portrayed in medieval Castilian history writing from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as mourning the loss of sons to war or illness, grief is represented as debilitating and dangerous, if not moderated. Hence, the... more
When kings are portrayed in medieval Castilian history writing from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as mourning the loss of sons to war or illness, grief is represented as debilitating and dangerous, if not moderated. Hence, the historiographical response to grief and sorrow demonstrates that not all displays of emotion by kings can be interpreted as intentional political acts or ritual display. Rather, the chronicles reveal instances of ideological use of emotions within history writing to disseminate certain ideas about kingship, gender, and emotions, which also contributed to forming lay noble emotional habitus. Chroniclers reveal an ideal that valued the transformation of sorrow into just anger and religious zeal, emotions whose functions were apparent in the ideological and military context of the Christian conquest of Muslim Spain.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Gender History, Medieval Iberian Literature, Medieval Studies, History Of Emotions, and 8 moreMedieval Iberian History, Medieval Spanish Literature, Gender and emotion, Medieval Spain, Norbert Elias: 'Court Society' and 'Civilising Process', Spanish Medieval Chronicles, Estoria De España, and Literature and Culture In Medieval Spain
En este ensayo trataré temas relevantes para entender cómo podemos usar la enseñanza del período medieval en Escandinavia en la formación de profesores de Historia. Empezaré enfocándome en cuál es la mejor manera de aprender la... more
En este ensayo trataré temas relevantes para entender cómo podemos usar la enseñanza del período medieval en Escandinavia en la formación de profesores de Historia. Empezaré enfocándome en cuál es la mejor manera de aprender la historia – intentando identificar una convergencia entre teoría y práctica docente – y luego explicaré la necesidad de, en un inicio, concentrar nuestros esfuerzos en las habilidades necesarias para la producción y el entendimiento de investigaciones históricas, para después obtener los conocimientos concretos. Encontrar representaciones populares en clases educativas, en conjunto con las fuentes históricas, puede contribuir a que los estudiantes entiendan cuáles preguntas podemos plantear en estos textos, qué incluyen las narrativas y qué se mantiene oculto. Debemos estar conscientes de la diversidad de medios que afectan la conciencia histórica de nuestros estudiantes, para poder poner énfasis en la facultad crítica con la que tenemos que enfrentar cada representación, medieval o moderna. Alumnos, estudiantes y profesores continuarán interactuando con el pasado a través de distintos medios de comunicación. Lo crucial es saber cómo enfrentarse con usos del pasado de manera reflexiva, pensativa e interrogadora. Así se puede ir formando una consciencia no solo del pasado, sino de los usos del pasado.
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De första riddarromanerna som översattes till fornsvenska, Herr Ivan (1303) och Flores och Blanzeflor (1312), utgör i denna artikel exempel på hur två medeltida översättningar omformulerar känslor och beskrivningar av verbala och fysiska... more
De första riddarromanerna som översattes till fornsvenska, Herr Ivan (1303) och Flores och Blanzeflor (1312), utgör i denna artikel exempel på hur två medeltida översättningar omformulerar känslor och beskrivningar av verbala och fysiska känslomässiga uttryck. De litterära gestalternas emotionella tillstånd presenteras som etiska dilemman, men de svenska översättningarna understryker också deras effekter på den sociala och politiska ordningen. Felaktiga känslor och inte minst omåttliga känslouttryck var problematiska för den politiska eliten. Den svenska 1300-talsaristokratin behövde en litteratur som kunde lansera höviska uppförandekoder, som spred idén om att den som fötts med ädelt blod var mer behärskad, rationell och därmed lämplig att styra riket. I artikeln diskuteras hur översättningarnas funktioner relaterar till olika strata inom den svenska aristokratin och dessas möjliga varierande reception av texterna.
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A striking example of the paradoxical relationship between the roles of king and father can be found in the Chronicle of Alfonso X (Crónica de Alfonso X), written by Fernán Sánchez de Valladolid in the 1340s, on behalf of the ruling King... more
A striking example of the paradoxical relationship between the roles of king and father can be found in the Chronicle of Alfonso X (Crónica de Alfonso X), written by Fernán Sánchez de Valladolid in the 1340s, on behalf of the ruling King Alfonso XI of Castile and León. In the midst of political turmoil and civil war raging because of a succession crisis, Alfonso is reached by false news of the death of his second son, Sancho (later IV), and is struck by grief. His counsellors, upon seeing his reaction, are mortified. In all probability this particular scene is not principally based on written evidence but a product of the chronicler’s imagination, and to understand this scene, we must consider what it was meant to convey to the intended audience of a historical discourse at court.
How are we then to approach the emotions of people in the Middle Ages, when they are so far away in time, and so ephemeral? Certainly we cannot be sure to reach anything more than an assumption of what this or that person may have felt in a particular situation. Nevertheless, the attitudes held towards emotive expressions and the ways in which they were interpreted are accessible to us. The shedding of tears is a constant human gesture, while its signification and cultural relevance are not. The meanings attributed to crying men and women vary according to each historical situation, with each cultural context or emotional community (to use a phrase coined by Barbara Rosenwein). As historians we need to be sensitive to the particular context in which emotional expressions were constructed.
This article examines crying, the emotions connected thereto, and the portrayal of kings as fathers and sons in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Spanish prose, in varying literary genres. The aim is to offer some reflections on the attitudes taken towards lachrymose behaviour, and to reach some insight into the distinction between the public and the private, the political and the emotional life in said context.
How are we then to approach the emotions of people in the Middle Ages, when they are so far away in time, and so ephemeral? Certainly we cannot be sure to reach anything more than an assumption of what this or that person may have felt in a particular situation. Nevertheless, the attitudes held towards emotive expressions and the ways in which they were interpreted are accessible to us. The shedding of tears is a constant human gesture, while its signification and cultural relevance are not. The meanings attributed to crying men and women vary according to each historical situation, with each cultural context or emotional community (to use a phrase coined by Barbara Rosenwein). As historians we need to be sensitive to the particular context in which emotional expressions were constructed.
This article examines crying, the emotions connected thereto, and the portrayal of kings as fathers and sons in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Spanish prose, in varying literary genres. The aim is to offer some reflections on the attitudes taken towards lachrymose behaviour, and to reach some insight into the distinction between the public and the private, the political and the emotional life in said context.
Research Interests: Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, History Of Emotions, Kingship (Medieval History), and 14 moreMedieval Spanish Literature, Emotional communites, Fatherhood, Medieval Spain, Alfonso X el Sabio, Medieval Chronicles, Medieval Castile, Spanish Medieval Chronicles, Moderation, James I of Aragon, Sancho IV, History of Tears, Emotional Communities, and Representations of fatherhood
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Medieval Iberian History, Alfonso X el Sabio, Medieval Chronicles, and 10 moreExempla, Don Juan Manuel, Medieval Castile, Spanish Medieval Chronicles, Alfonso XI of Castile, Crónica de Alfonso X, Estoria De España, Crónica De Castilla, Jörn Rüsen, and Crónica de tres reyes
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Research Interests: Medieval Literature, Ideology, Medieval Scandinavia, History of Political Language, Swedish History, and 12 moreMedieval Political Thought, Medieval Romance, Medieval Aristocracy, Medieval Chronicles, Fourteenth-Century History, Arthurian Romances, Medieval Sweden, History of Sweden, Old swedish literature, Eufemiavisorna, Erikskönikan (Chronicle om Duke Erik), and Erikskrönikan (Chronicle of Duke Erik)
Riddarromaner och historiska krönikor är området för Kim Bergqvists artikel "Den medeltida riddaren som intertextuellt fenomen: Om hjältekonstruktioner i Eufemiavisorna och Erikskrönikan." I artikeln studerar Bergqvist görandet av hjältar... more
Riddarromaner och historiska krönikor är området för Kim Bergqvists artikel "Den medeltida riddaren som intertextuellt fenomen: Om hjältekonstruktioner i Eufemiavisorna och Erikskrönikan." I artikeln studerar Bergqvist görandet av hjältar genom analyser av föreställningar om och gestaltningar av medeltida riddare, så som de framställs i ovanstående narrativ från 1300-talet. Bergqvist menar att dessa, mer eller mindre, fiktiva hjältegestaltningar, förhandlade i en samtida nationell, sociohistorisk kontext, utgjorde ett medel i den aristokratiska gruppens identitetsskapande och som sådan verkade normerande för tidsperiodens uppfattningar om idealiserad manlighet och kvinnlighet. (Ur Therése Anderssons inledning, Hjältar och Hjältinnor, ss. 13-14)
Research Interests: Medieval Literature, Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Gender History, Gender History, and 10 moreMedieval Studies, Medieval Studies, Medieval Historiography, Medieval Scandinavia, Medieval Scandinavia, Intertextuality, Intertextuality, Medieval Nobility, Medieval Nobility, and Medieval Romance
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Review of Luke Sunderland, Rebel Barons: Resisting Royal Power in Medieval Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
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The book under scrutiny here is the culmination of an ambitious study. It has been the intention of Aengus Ward (Ph.D., 1995, Birmingham) to examine a large number of textual representations of the seventh-century Visigothic King Wamba in... more
The book under scrutiny here is the culmination of an ambitious study. It has been the intention of Aengus Ward (Ph.D., 1995, Birmingham) to examine a large number of textual representations of the seventh-century Visigothic King Wamba in order to delve into the question of the existence of a chronicle genre in late medieval Iberia. Ward, a Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Birmingham, has previously published critical editions of late medieval Iberian chronicles and a number of articles on historiography, authorship, and manuscript culture. The importance of his contribution to the recent strengthening of research on medieval Iberian historiography is undeniable.
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Research Interests: Medieval Iberian Literature, Medieval Studies, Medieval Iberian History, Translation, Raymond Martini, and 10 moreJuan Andrés, Medieval Iberia, Conversion, Abner of Burgos, Hispano medieval Studies, Hispano arabic Studies, Sephardic Literature and Culture, Polemics and Apologetics, Literatura Sefardí, and Intellectual History of Al andalus
Ana Echevarría presently teaches medieval history at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid. Her research focus has been the relations between Christianity and Islam in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages.... more
Ana Echevarría presently teaches medieval history at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid. Her research focus has been the relations between Christianity and Islam in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. She has published various books and articles on such topics as the situation of religious minorities under Christian rule; the conversion of such minorities; religious and political polemics; as well as legislature, power, social status and structures. These aspects of life in the medieval realms in the Iberian Peninsula are also present in the work currently under review.
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This paper examines conceptions of private and public life and the role of emotional display, primarily through the analysis of historical works in Latin and the vernacular, produced in Castile and León in the period c. 1250 to 1350. The... more
This paper examines conceptions of private and public life and the role of emotional display, primarily through the analysis of historical works in Latin and the vernacular, produced in Castile and León in the period c. 1250 to 1350. The aim of the paper is to discover how emergent notions of private and public related to the regulation of proper emotional display. I will discuss whether specific emotions where indeed deemed appropriate only in certain spheres of life, whether it is possible to be sure which concepts and practices were considered “emotional” in medieval societies, and how communities that disparaged excessive emotional display handled affective responses that routinely went against theoretical understandings and ideals.
I will argue that the virtue of moderation (mesura) came to assume a great deal of sociopolitical significance in this period, partly through the attempts of Alfonso X the Learned (r.1252– 1284) to implement a courtly, aristocratic knighthood, partly by noble responses such as that of Don Juan Manuel (1282–1348), and partly through the historiographical discourse on a larger scale, that staged and represented this virtue in a particular manner that was arguably much more influential than any juridical doctrine or purely didactic work.
Can we consider chronicles then to teach the management of emotions, in the likeness of mirrors of princes? I would argue that the didactic qualities inherent in medieval history writing support such a perspective. Part of the paper will be aimed at examining the significance of the cross-cultural connections between Christian and Islamic societies in medieval Iberia. Contemporary Islamic historiography will be compared to the Castilian examples, in order to discuss whether attitudes to emotions and emotional display were shared between these two cultures that had been physically adjacent during many centuries, but the difference between which – in dogma and in mentality – is often assumed to be great.
I will argue that the virtue of moderation (mesura) came to assume a great deal of sociopolitical significance in this period, partly through the attempts of Alfonso X the Learned (r.1252– 1284) to implement a courtly, aristocratic knighthood, partly by noble responses such as that of Don Juan Manuel (1282–1348), and partly through the historiographical discourse on a larger scale, that staged and represented this virtue in a particular manner that was arguably much more influential than any juridical doctrine or purely didactic work.
Can we consider chronicles then to teach the management of emotions, in the likeness of mirrors of princes? I would argue that the didactic qualities inherent in medieval history writing support such a perspective. Part of the paper will be aimed at examining the significance of the cross-cultural connections between Christian and Islamic societies in medieval Iberia. Contemporary Islamic historiography will be compared to the Castilian examples, in order to discuss whether attitudes to emotions and emotional display were shared between these two cultures that had been physically adjacent during many centuries, but the difference between which – in dogma and in mentality – is often assumed to be great.
Research Interests: Medieval Iberian Literature, History Of Emotions, Medieval Iberian History, Affect Studies, Medieval Islamic History, and 9 moreMedieval Spain, Alfonso X el Sabio, Medieval Iberia, Don Juan Manuel, Las siete partidas, Medieval Castile, Moderation, Emotional Communities, and History of Medieval Castile
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Debating the King in Fourteenth-Century Sweden: Combining the Evidence from Romance and Chronicle In the fourteenth century, Swedish aristocracy as a social group posed a real (and imagined) threat to the power and authority of the... more
Debating the King in Fourteenth-Century Sweden:
Combining the Evidence from Romance and Chronicle
In the fourteenth century, Swedish aristocracy as a social group posed a real (and imagined) threat to the power and authority of the monarch. I examine the literary evidence from the first half of the fourteenth century, analysing the means by which the authors put the figure of the king into question, and to which factors and aspects of kingship and its legitimacy these strategies were linked. These aspects include considerations of lineage and rightful rule, the ordering of society and its upkeep by acts of violence, as well as notions of masculinity. I read these strategies as expressions of aristocratic ideology; a conception of how the social world should be ordered that is constructed in these texts. My aim is to discover and explain the ideological underpinnings of the texts studied, focussing on the particular topic of questions raised around the nature of kingship. Thus, the paper engages in the socio-historical reality surrounding the production of the texts by analysing their content.
The romances were crucial to the construction of an aristocratic ideology in late medieval Sweden. These literary texts reflect a past reality that they also helped create. The main texts for this inquiry are the three early fourteenth-century Old Swedish verse romances jointly known as the Eufemiavisor: Herr Ivan (a translation of Yvain: Le chevalier au lion), Flores och Blanzeflor (Floire et Blanchefleur), and Hertig Fredrik av Normandie (original unknown). But the romances also influenced other genres of Swedish vernacular texts such as the writing of chronicles. This is particularly true of the Erikskrönika, an historical narrative that spans the preceding century before its composition in the early 1320s. Previous research has pointed out the influence of the romances on the chronicle, but not examined its importance for the political or social aspects of the narrative, explored in this paper.
Select bibliography
Primary sources
NOREEN, Erik, ed. Hertig Fredrik av Normandie. Kritisk upplaga på grundval av Codex Verelianus. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1927. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 163.
---, ed. Herr Ivan. Kritisk upplaga. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1930-31. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 164-166 (1-3).
OLSSON, Emil, ed. Flores och Blanzeflor. Kritisk upplaga. Nytryck av häft. 157 (med ett tillägg). Stockholm, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1956. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 214.
PIPPING, Rolf, ed. Erikskrönikan enligt Cod. Holm: D.2 jämte avvikande läsarter ur andra handskrifter. Nytryck av häft. 158 (med ett tillägg). Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1963. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 231.
Secondary literature
BAMBECK, Florian, ed. and transl. Herzog Friedrich von der Normandie: der altschwedishe Ritterroman Hertig Fredrik av Normandie: Text, Übersetzung, Untersuchungen. Diss. Würzburg U, 2009. Wiesbaden, Reichert, 2009. Imagines Medii Aevi 24.
BAMPI, Massimiliano. ”Translating Courtly Literature and Ideology in Medieval Sweden: Flores och Blanzeflor.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 4 (2008): 1-14.
BAREFIELD, Laura D. Gender and History in Medieval English Romance and Chronicle. New York, Peter Lang Publishing, 2003. Studies in the Humanities 63.
BENGTSSON, Herman. Den höviska kulturen i Norden. En konsthistorisk undersökning. Diss. Stockholm U, 1999. Stockholm, Kungl. Vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademien, 1999. Antikvariska serien 43.
FERRARI, Fulvio. ”Literature as a Performative Act: Erikskrönikan and the Making of a Nation.” Lärdomber oc skämptan: Medieval Swedish Literature Reconsidered. Ed. Massimiliano Bampi and Fulvio Ferrari. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 2008. Serie 3, Smärre texter och undersökningar 5. 55-80.
GRIEVE, Patricia, E. Floire and Blancheflor and the European Romance. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 32.
HUNT, Tony. ”Herr Ivan Lejonriddaren”. Mediaeval Scandinavia 8 (1975): 168-186.
JANSSON, Sven-Bertil. Medeltidens rimkrönikor. Studier i funktion, stoff, form. Diss. Uppsala U, 1971. Stockholm, 1971. Studia litterarum Upsaliensia 9.
LAYHER, William. Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Queenship and Power 7.
NOREEN, Erik. Studier rörande Eufemiavisorna, Vol. 1-3. Uppsala, K. Humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet, 1923-1929.
PÉNEAU, Corinne, ed. and transl. Erikskrönika = Chronique d'Erik: première chronique rimée suédoise (première moitié du XIVe siècle). Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2005. Textes et documents d’histoire médiévale 5.
REUTER, Timothy. ”Nobles and Others: The Social and Cultural Expression of Power Relations in the Middle Ages.” Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations. Ed. Anne J. Duggan. Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2000. 85-98.
SMÅBERG, Thomas. ”Bland drottningar och hertigar - Utblickar kring riddarromaner och deras användning i svensk medeltidsforskning”. Historisk tidskrift 131.2 (2011): 197-226.
THOMPSON, John B. Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1984.
VILHELMSDOTTER, Gisela. Riddare, bonde och biskop: studier kring tre fornsvenska dikter jämte två nyeditioner. Diss. Stockholm U, 1999. Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1999. Stockholm Studies in History of Literature 42.
Combining the Evidence from Romance and Chronicle
In the fourteenth century, Swedish aristocracy as a social group posed a real (and imagined) threat to the power and authority of the monarch. I examine the literary evidence from the first half of the fourteenth century, analysing the means by which the authors put the figure of the king into question, and to which factors and aspects of kingship and its legitimacy these strategies were linked. These aspects include considerations of lineage and rightful rule, the ordering of society and its upkeep by acts of violence, as well as notions of masculinity. I read these strategies as expressions of aristocratic ideology; a conception of how the social world should be ordered that is constructed in these texts. My aim is to discover and explain the ideological underpinnings of the texts studied, focussing on the particular topic of questions raised around the nature of kingship. Thus, the paper engages in the socio-historical reality surrounding the production of the texts by analysing their content.
The romances were crucial to the construction of an aristocratic ideology in late medieval Sweden. These literary texts reflect a past reality that they also helped create. The main texts for this inquiry are the three early fourteenth-century Old Swedish verse romances jointly known as the Eufemiavisor: Herr Ivan (a translation of Yvain: Le chevalier au lion), Flores och Blanzeflor (Floire et Blanchefleur), and Hertig Fredrik av Normandie (original unknown). But the romances also influenced other genres of Swedish vernacular texts such as the writing of chronicles. This is particularly true of the Erikskrönika, an historical narrative that spans the preceding century before its composition in the early 1320s. Previous research has pointed out the influence of the romances on the chronicle, but not examined its importance for the political or social aspects of the narrative, explored in this paper.
Select bibliography
Primary sources
NOREEN, Erik, ed. Hertig Fredrik av Normandie. Kritisk upplaga på grundval av Codex Verelianus. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1927. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 163.
---, ed. Herr Ivan. Kritisk upplaga. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1930-31. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 164-166 (1-3).
OLSSON, Emil, ed. Flores och Blanzeflor. Kritisk upplaga. Nytryck av häft. 157 (med ett tillägg). Stockholm, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1956. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 214.
PIPPING, Rolf, ed. Erikskrönikan enligt Cod. Holm: D.2 jämte avvikande läsarter ur andra handskrifter. Nytryck av häft. 158 (med ett tillägg). Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftssällskapet, 1963. Serie 1, Svenska skrifter 231.
Secondary literature
BAMBECK, Florian, ed. and transl. Herzog Friedrich von der Normandie: der altschwedishe Ritterroman Hertig Fredrik av Normandie: Text, Übersetzung, Untersuchungen. Diss. Würzburg U, 2009. Wiesbaden, Reichert, 2009. Imagines Medii Aevi 24.
BAMPI, Massimiliano. ”Translating Courtly Literature and Ideology in Medieval Sweden: Flores och Blanzeflor.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 4 (2008): 1-14.
BAREFIELD, Laura D. Gender and History in Medieval English Romance and Chronicle. New York, Peter Lang Publishing, 2003. Studies in the Humanities 63.
BENGTSSON, Herman. Den höviska kulturen i Norden. En konsthistorisk undersökning. Diss. Stockholm U, 1999. Stockholm, Kungl. Vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademien, 1999. Antikvariska serien 43.
FERRARI, Fulvio. ”Literature as a Performative Act: Erikskrönikan and the Making of a Nation.” Lärdomber oc skämptan: Medieval Swedish Literature Reconsidered. Ed. Massimiliano Bampi and Fulvio Ferrari. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 2008. Serie 3, Smärre texter och undersökningar 5. 55-80.
GRIEVE, Patricia, E. Floire and Blancheflor and the European Romance. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 32.
HUNT, Tony. ”Herr Ivan Lejonriddaren”. Mediaeval Scandinavia 8 (1975): 168-186.
JANSSON, Sven-Bertil. Medeltidens rimkrönikor. Studier i funktion, stoff, form. Diss. Uppsala U, 1971. Stockholm, 1971. Studia litterarum Upsaliensia 9.
LAYHER, William. Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Queenship and Power 7.
NOREEN, Erik. Studier rörande Eufemiavisorna, Vol. 1-3. Uppsala, K. Humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet, 1923-1929.
PÉNEAU, Corinne, ed. and transl. Erikskrönika = Chronique d'Erik: première chronique rimée suédoise (première moitié du XIVe siècle). Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2005. Textes et documents d’histoire médiévale 5.
REUTER, Timothy. ”Nobles and Others: The Social and Cultural Expression of Power Relations in the Middle Ages.” Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations. Ed. Anne J. Duggan. Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2000. 85-98.
SMÅBERG, Thomas. ”Bland drottningar och hertigar - Utblickar kring riddarromaner och deras användning i svensk medeltidsforskning”. Historisk tidskrift 131.2 (2011): 197-226.
THOMPSON, John B. Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1984.
VILHELMSDOTTER, Gisela. Riddare, bonde och biskop: studier kring tre fornsvenska dikter jämte två nyeditioner. Diss. Stockholm U, 1999. Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1999. Stockholm Studies in History of Literature 42.
This paper presents the first case study that will form part of my current doctoral thesis project, which deals with the ideology of the nobility in fourteenth-century Castile and Sweden. In the paper I analyse the Swedish Eric’s... more
This paper presents the first case study that will form part of my current doctoral thesis project, which deals with the ideology of the nobility in fourteenth-century Castile and Sweden. In the paper I analyse the Swedish Eric’s Chronicle (a rhymed chronicle with historical and political content, probably written in the 1320s), and the Castilian Don Juan Manuel’s Libro de las armas (or Libro de las tres razones, a sort of political testament, written towards 1337, with historical content) as expressions of aristocratic ideology, and compare the two. They are contemporaneous, and were both written by authors from within the higher nobility, close to the inner circle of monarchic power.
Much research has been put into studying how official chronicles and histories proposed proto-national ideologies and spread monarchic or dynastic propaganda, i.e. the untruthfulness of historiographical works. What interests me is how these developments in research can be used in the analysis of un-official histories: those written not as a dynastic project or commissioned by a king, but for other purposes.
I consider the ways in which aristocratic or noble identity and ideology were constructed and formulated in these texts, how aristocratic superiority and privileges were legitimated and defended in the contemporary discourse, at a time when the nobility was in a phase of consolidation, and society in a state of turmoil. What role(s) did the nobles claim in society (not least in relation to monarchic power), and how did they separate themselves from other social strata? In viewing these areas as European peripheries, in my dissertation I would like to discover how they relate to the main European trends that are visible in earlier research on this topic, and of course also give attention to the distinctive particularities.
I will discuss the content of the aristocratic ideology, and how it manifests itself in these historiographical texts, as well as in which ways, and by using which specific arguments, legitimizing practice takes place. Questions will concern historical writing: how the writers used past events to further their arguments; as well as narrative exposition.
Selected bibliography
Primary sources
JUAN Manuel & Blecua, José Manuel (1982). Obras completas. T. 1, Madrid: Gredos.
PIPPING, Rolf (ed.) (1963). Erikskrönikan enligt Cod. Holm: D.2 jämte avvikande läsarter ur andra handskrifter. Uppsala.
Secondary literature
BENITO-VESSELS, Carmen (1994). ”La prosa histórica de don Juan Manuel: La Crónica abreviada y el Libro de las armas”, in: Actas del III Congreso de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval (Salamanca, 3 al 6 de octubre de 1989). T. 1. Salamanca: Biblioteca Española del siglo XV, pp. 181-186.
DÍEZ DE REVENGA, Francisco Javier (1982). ”El Libro de las armas de don Juan Manuel: algo más que un libro de historia”, in: Abad, Francisco (ed.), Don Juan Manuel: VII centenario. Murcia: Univ. de Murcia, Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, pp. 103-116.
FERRARI, Fulvio (2008), ”Literature as a performative act: Erikskrönikan and the making of a nation”, in: Bampi, Massimiliano & Ferrari, Fulvio (eds.), Lärdomber oc skämptan: medieval Swedish literature reconsidered. Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, pp. 55-80.
GRABOWSKA, James A. (2006). The challenge to Spanish nobility in the fourteenth century: the struggle for power in Don Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor, 1335. Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press.
ORDUNA, Germán (1982). “El Libro de las armas: clave de la justicia de Don Juan Manuel”, Cuadernos de Historia de España 47-48, pp. 230-268.
PÉNEAU, Corinne (ed.) (2005). Erikskrönika = Chronique d'Erik : première chronique rimée suédoise (première moitié du XIVe siècle). Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
SKINNER, Patricia (ed.) (2009). Challenging the boundaries of medieval history: the legacy of Timothy Reuter. Turnhout: Brepols
THOMPSON, John B. (1984). Studies in the theory of ideology. Cambridge: Polity P.
VILHELMSDOTTER, Gisela (1999). Riddare, bonde och biskop: studier kring tre fornsvenska dikter jämte två nyeditioner. Diss. Stockholm: Univ.
Much research has been put into studying how official chronicles and histories proposed proto-national ideologies and spread monarchic or dynastic propaganda, i.e. the untruthfulness of historiographical works. What interests me is how these developments in research can be used in the analysis of un-official histories: those written not as a dynastic project or commissioned by a king, but for other purposes.
I consider the ways in which aristocratic or noble identity and ideology were constructed and formulated in these texts, how aristocratic superiority and privileges were legitimated and defended in the contemporary discourse, at a time when the nobility was in a phase of consolidation, and society in a state of turmoil. What role(s) did the nobles claim in society (not least in relation to monarchic power), and how did they separate themselves from other social strata? In viewing these areas as European peripheries, in my dissertation I would like to discover how they relate to the main European trends that are visible in earlier research on this topic, and of course also give attention to the distinctive particularities.
I will discuss the content of the aristocratic ideology, and how it manifests itself in these historiographical texts, as well as in which ways, and by using which specific arguments, legitimizing practice takes place. Questions will concern historical writing: how the writers used past events to further their arguments; as well as narrative exposition.
Selected bibliography
Primary sources
JUAN Manuel & Blecua, José Manuel (1982). Obras completas. T. 1, Madrid: Gredos.
PIPPING, Rolf (ed.) (1963). Erikskrönikan enligt Cod. Holm: D.2 jämte avvikande läsarter ur andra handskrifter. Uppsala.
Secondary literature
BENITO-VESSELS, Carmen (1994). ”La prosa histórica de don Juan Manuel: La Crónica abreviada y el Libro de las armas”, in: Actas del III Congreso de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval (Salamanca, 3 al 6 de octubre de 1989). T. 1. Salamanca: Biblioteca Española del siglo XV, pp. 181-186.
DÍEZ DE REVENGA, Francisco Javier (1982). ”El Libro de las armas de don Juan Manuel: algo más que un libro de historia”, in: Abad, Francisco (ed.), Don Juan Manuel: VII centenario. Murcia: Univ. de Murcia, Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, pp. 103-116.
FERRARI, Fulvio (2008), ”Literature as a performative act: Erikskrönikan and the making of a nation”, in: Bampi, Massimiliano & Ferrari, Fulvio (eds.), Lärdomber oc skämptan: medieval Swedish literature reconsidered. Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, pp. 55-80.
GRABOWSKA, James A. (2006). The challenge to Spanish nobility in the fourteenth century: the struggle for power in Don Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor, 1335. Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press.
ORDUNA, Germán (1982). “El Libro de las armas: clave de la justicia de Don Juan Manuel”, Cuadernos de Historia de España 47-48, pp. 230-268.
PÉNEAU, Corinne (ed.) (2005). Erikskrönika = Chronique d'Erik : première chronique rimée suédoise (première moitié du XIVe siècle). Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
SKINNER, Patricia (ed.) (2009). Challenging the boundaries of medieval history: the legacy of Timothy Reuter. Turnhout: Brepols
THOMPSON, John B. (1984). Studies in the theory of ideology. Cambridge: Polity P.
VILHELMSDOTTER, Gisela (1999). Riddare, bonde och biskop: studier kring tre fornsvenska dikter jämte två nyeditioner. Diss. Stockholm: Univ.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Guest blog post for Pubs and Publications
Research Interests:
Historians of Medieval Iberia propose a sponsored session at the Leeds Medieval Congress 2017: COMpARATIVE RECONqUESTS Our aim is to examine the conceptualization and practice of reconquest from a comparative viewpoint, considering how,... more
Historians of Medieval Iberia propose a sponsored session at the Leeds Medieval Congress 2017:
COMpARATIVE RECONqUESTS
Our aim is to examine the conceptualization and practice of reconquest from a comparative viewpoint, considering how, in various circumstances and geographical situations, the terminology of reconquest is deployed. We seek to
expore terminology and depictions of reconquests which make implicit and explicit claims in returning what has become other to rejoin what was before undivided and the same. We would thus welcome papers not only on the Iberian reconquista as traditionally understood, but on dreams, plans and execution of the reconquest of Jerusalem, Constantinople, al-Andalus, the Baltic, the Northern Kingdoms, ... indeed, anywhere where political actors seek to assert control over other’s space by claiming that they are, in fact, re-asserting former control.
We will look for three sessions, covering the following areas:
Reconquest as narrative
Reconquest as ideal
Reconquest as praxis
Abstracts of papers should be sent to "[email protected]" no later than 29 September 2016.
Kim Bergqvist
Kurt Villads Jensen
Anthony John Lappin
COMpARATIVE RECONqUESTS
Our aim is to examine the conceptualization and practice of reconquest from a comparative viewpoint, considering how, in various circumstances and geographical situations, the terminology of reconquest is deployed. We seek to
expore terminology and depictions of reconquests which make implicit and explicit claims in returning what has become other to rejoin what was before undivided and the same. We would thus welcome papers not only on the Iberian reconquista as traditionally understood, but on dreams, plans and execution of the reconquest of Jerusalem, Constantinople, al-Andalus, the Baltic, the Northern Kingdoms, ... indeed, anywhere where political actors seek to assert control over other’s space by claiming that they are, in fact, re-asserting former control.
We will look for three sessions, covering the following areas:
Reconquest as narrative
Reconquest as ideal
Reconquest as praxis
Abstracts of papers should be sent to "[email protected]" no later than 29 September 2016.
Kim Bergqvist
Kurt Villads Jensen
Anthony John Lappin
Research Interests: High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Crusades, and 17 moreMedieval Islam, Medieval Iberian History, Al-Andalus, History of Crusades, History of Religion (Medieval Studies), Medieval Christianity, Crusades and the Latin East, Medieval Spain, Medieval Warfare, Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in the Middle Ages, Medieval Chronicles, Baltic Crusade, Medieval History of Spain, Middle Ages, Portuguese Reconquista, Spanish Reconquest, and Reconquista
As a means of revitalizing and continuing an institution established by Derek Lomax and Richard Fletcher, we shall celebrate a symposium with the theme "Enemies and Friends" in Stockholm on March 14-16, 2016. This theme should be... more
As a means of revitalizing and continuing an institution established by Derek Lomax and Richard Fletcher,
we shall celebrate a symposium with the theme "Enemies and Friends" in Stockholm on March 14-16, 2016. This theme should be understood widely, and it is intended that it embraces courtly cultures, diplomacy, shifting alliances and military and social conflict; rituals of friendship, signs of enmity; patronage and exclusion, exile and execution; odium theologicum, polemic, competition, and coexistence within and between religious communities; charitas and supernatural threats.
Confirmed keynote speakers are:
Professor Simon Barton (University of Exeter)
Assistant Professor Maria João Violante Branco (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Professor Simon Doubleday (Hofstra University, NY)
Professor Maribel Fierro (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid)
We accept short proposals for 20-minute papers, containing an abstract (of about 300 words) and a brief CV, or proposals for sessions containing three such papers. These should be sent by October 30, 2015 to [email protected].
The preferred language of the symposium will be English.
Notification of acceptance of proposed sessions and papers will be given on November 30, 2015.
Presenters will be invited to submit their papers for evaluation for a publication of the proceedings edited by the organisers.
we shall celebrate a symposium with the theme "Enemies and Friends" in Stockholm on March 14-16, 2016. This theme should be understood widely, and it is intended that it embraces courtly cultures, diplomacy, shifting alliances and military and social conflict; rituals of friendship, signs of enmity; patronage and exclusion, exile and execution; odium theologicum, polemic, competition, and coexistence within and between religious communities; charitas and supernatural threats.
Confirmed keynote speakers are:
Professor Simon Barton (University of Exeter)
Assistant Professor Maria João Violante Branco (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Professor Simon Doubleday (Hofstra University, NY)
Professor Maribel Fierro (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid)
We accept short proposals for 20-minute papers, containing an abstract (of about 300 words) and a brief CV, or proposals for sessions containing three such papers. These should be sent by October 30, 2015 to [email protected].
The preferred language of the symposium will be English.
Notification of acceptance of proposed sessions and papers will be given on November 30, 2015.
Presenters will be invited to submit their papers for evaluation for a publication of the proceedings edited by the organisers.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Iberian Literature, Medieval Studies, Portuguese Medieval History, Medieval Iberian History, and 12 moreAl-Andalus, Medieval Spanish Literature, Al Andalus (Islamic History), Medieval Crown of Aragon, Medieval Spain, Medieval Iberia, Historia medieval de España, Medieval History of Spain, Edad Media, Medieval Catalonia, História medieval portuguesa, and Història Medieval de Catalunya
This day-conference will encourage a discussion over the role of the bishop during the middle ages, engaging medievalists from different periods and geographical locations in dialogue with each other, as the various functions of a... more
This day-conference will encourage a discussion over the role of the bishop during the middle ages, engaging medievalists from different periods and geographical locations in dialogue with each other, as the various functions of a medieval bishop ‘on the ground’, rather than in theory, will be examined in their different aspect with relation to a particular place and time.
We shall discuss bishops and/as canonists, bishops and pastoral obligations, bishops and monasteries for the early medieval period; for the central middle ages, bishops and/in the crusades, and papal legates, and bad behaviour; and for the end of the middle ages, bishops and/in the court, and/in armies and, finally, the last three bishops of Uppsala.
We are pleased to note that we have, as speakers, one Angle, one Celt, one Celtiberian, one Dane, three (!) Finns, one Geat (Western), one Jute, and one from the lands of the Rus.
The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature is pleased to announce that it will award up to ten travel and accommodation bursaries for graduate students, based in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, who wish to attend the conference. If you wish to apply, please email the Executive Officer ([email protected]) as soon as possible.
The Conference will take place on 3rd December 2015 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquity, Stockholm Sweden. Find more details and register here: http://mediumaevum.modhist.ox.ac.uk/dayconference
We shall discuss bishops and/as canonists, bishops and pastoral obligations, bishops and monasteries for the early medieval period; for the central middle ages, bishops and/in the crusades, and papal legates, and bad behaviour; and for the end of the middle ages, bishops and/in the court, and/in armies and, finally, the last three bishops of Uppsala.
We are pleased to note that we have, as speakers, one Angle, one Celt, one Celtiberian, one Dane, three (!) Finns, one Geat (Western), one Jute, and one from the lands of the Rus.
The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature is pleased to announce that it will award up to ten travel and accommodation bursaries for graduate students, based in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, who wish to attend the conference. If you wish to apply, please email the Executive Officer ([email protected]) as soon as possible.
The Conference will take place on 3rd December 2015 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquity, Stockholm Sweden. Find more details and register here: http://mediumaevum.modhist.ox.ac.uk/dayconference
Research Interests: Late Middle Ages, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Medieval Church History, Early Medieval History, and 9 morePower and Authority in the Middle Ages, History of the Clergy, Medieval Europe, History of Religion (Medieval Studies), Middle Ages, Medieval Episcopacy, Medieval Bishops, Christianity Middle Ages, and Central Middle Ages (1000 1250)
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Cash grant Fellowship (Sten Westerberg donation) from the Sweden-America Foundation for doctoral study as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures (LAIC) at Columbia University in the City of New York,... more
Cash grant Fellowship (Sten Westerberg donation) from the Sweden-America Foundation for doctoral study as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures (LAIC) at Columbia University in the City of New York, fall semester 2016.
Research Interests:
Registration open!!!
Research Interests:
The 10th Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North was held from April 15–17, 2021, marking a three-day online event on Zoom and Twitch as well as a virtual exhibition of 14 posters. This proceedings publication includes... more
The 10th Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North was held from April 15–17, 2021, marking a three-day online event on Zoom and Twitch as well as a virtual exhibition of 14 posters. This proceedings publication includes enlarged abstracts of 29 papers presented at the conference. The overall aim of this publication is to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North.
Research Interests:
The 10th Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North was held from April 15–17, 2021, marking a three-day online event on Zoom and Twitch as well as a virtual exhibition of 14 posters. This proceedings publication includes... more
The 10th Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North was held from April 15–17, 2021, marking a three-day online event on Zoom and Twitch as well as a virtual exhibition of 14 posters. This proceedings publication includes enlarged abstracts of 29 papers presented at the conference. The overall aim of this publication is to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North.
Research Interests:
Writing circa ad 731, Bede professes in the introduction to his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum that he will write his account of the past of the English following only “vera lex historiae.” Whether explicitly or (most often)... more
Writing circa ad 731, Bede professes in the introduction to his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum that he will write his account of the past of the English following only “vera lex historiae.” Whether explicitly or (most often) implicitly, historians narrate the past according to a conception of what constitutes historical truth that emerges in the use of narrative strategies, of certain formulae or textual forms, in establishing one’s own ideological authority or that of one’s informants, in faithfulness to a cultural, narrative, poetic or tradition. If we extend the scope of what we understand by history (especially in a pre-modern setting) to include not just the writings of historians legitimated by their belonging to the Latinate matrix of christianized classical history-writing, but also collective narratives, practices, rituals, oral poetry, liturgy, artistic representations and acts of identity – all re-enacting the past as, or as representation of, the present, we find a plethora of modes of constructions of historical truth, narrative authority, and reliability.
Vera lex historiae? is constituted by contributions that reveal the variety of evental strategies by which historical truth was constructed in late antiquity and the earlier middle ages, and the range of procedures by which such narratives were established first as being historical and then as ‘true’ histories. This is not only a matter of narrative strategies, but also habitus, ways of living and acting in the world that feed on and back into the commemoration and re-enactment of the past by communities and by individuals. In doing this, we hope to recover something of the plurality of modes of preserving and reenacting the past available in late antiquity and the earlier middle ages which we pass by because of preconceived notions of what constitutes history-writing.
Vera lex historiae? is constituted by contributions that reveal the variety of evental strategies by which historical truth was constructed in late antiquity and the earlier middle ages, and the range of procedures by which such narratives were established first as being historical and then as ‘true’ histories. This is not only a matter of narrative strategies, but also habitus, ways of living and acting in the world that feed on and back into the commemoration and re-enactment of the past by communities and by individuals. In doing this, we hope to recover something of the plurality of modes of preserving and reenacting the past available in late antiquity and the earlier middle ages which we pass by because of preconceived notions of what constitutes history-writing.