Convenors: Marian Coman (University of Bucharest) and Ionuț Epurescu-Pascovici (ICUB Humanities)
This research working group is intended as a venue for historians, social scientists, and philosophers interested in discussing recent developments in the study of medieval Europe. Comparisons between Latin Europe, Byzantium, and Islam, and between late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period are encouraged. The research group is not limited to medievalists but open to colleagues in other fields.
Monthly meetings include roundtable discussions of recent scholarship, readings of primary sources, methodological seminars, and presentations of work in progress. Working languages are Romanian and English.
Contact: Marian Coman – marian.coman(at)istorie.unibuc.ro, Ionuț Epurescu-Pascovici – ionut.epurescu-pascovici(at)icub.unibuc.ro
Venue
The Middle Ages today: grand narratives and their alternatives
As historians who have come of age in late modernity we are instinctively suspicious of grand narratives and their totalizing claims. That grand narratives still hold a place in our historical imagination points to their enduring – if diminished – relevance: we banish them from our research but reluctantly resurrect them in our teaching as serviceable approximations. (The ‘Middle Ages’ is itself one such meta-narrative, and more intractable because of medievalists’ investment in it as part of a defence of professional turf.) But what are the alternatives – exemplary microhistories, ‘thick descriptions’, and comparative studies of centre and periphery? And which parts of the medieval grand narrative retain more explanatory power than the others? From ‘feudalism’ to medievalists’ fascination with the state, we will discuss the periodization, key concepts, and explanatory schemes through which we make sense of Europe between 800 and 1550. In addition to roundtables and discussions of the scholarly literature, there will be a number of individual presentations by guest speakers.
Unless otherwise indicated, meetings take place at ICUB, Str. Dimitrie Brândză nr. 1.
Friday, 18 October 2019, 5 pm – The Middle Ages in the historical imagination
- Readings: Umberto Eco, ‘Dreaming of the Middle Ages’ (1973).
Thursday, 7 November 2019, 5 pm – Teaching the Middle Ages
Thursday, 12 December 2019, 5 pm – The state: medieval / modern
- Readings: R. Davies, ‘The medieval state: the tyrrany of a concept?’, Journal of Historical Sociology 16 (2003)
- Optional reading: A. Harding, Medieval law and the foundations of the state, ch. 8
Tuesday, 10 March 2020, 5 pm – Medieval Commonwealths
- Readings: Shepard, The Byzantine Commonwealth (2006), Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire (2016), Jacoby, ‘The expansion of Venetian governement’ (2015)
2018/2019 academic year, 2nd semester: Identities
Identity is a multifaceted subject, intersecting with several other areas of academic study: ethnicity, community, social class, religion, and individualism cannot be understood without reference to the concept of identity. Although frequently expressed through material culture, identity retains an almost ineffable quality (to quote Aaron Gurevich on the individual in medieval society). Identity is what makes me who I am, and as such remains difficult to pin down from the often lacunary medieval evidence. This notwithstanding, medievalists have produced a substantial body of knowledge on questions of identity, on which we will draw in the course of four roundtable discussions this semester, ranging from ethnic identity to the social self.
Unless otherwise announced, meetings take place Mondays from 5 pm at ICUB.
Monday, 25 February 2019, 17h – National and ethnic identity in the Middle Ages
- Johnson and Smith in Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages (1995); Curta, Introduction and Conclusions from The Making of the Slavs (2001).
Monday, 18 March 2019, 17h – Ethnicity, community, and race
- Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (2018), chapter 1; Pohl et al. (eds., 2018), pp. 3-40, 241-53; Barzaman (2017), pp. 224-54.
Monday, 1 April 2019, 17h – The social self
- Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago (2010), chapter 6; Koziol, ‘Is Robert I in hell?’ (2006).
Monday, 6 May 2019, 17h – Hidden identities: Impostors, counterfeits, and dissimulators
- Davis, ‘Remaking impostors: from Martin Guerre to Sommersby’ (1997); Introduction and Conclusions from Hug, Impostures in Early Modern England (2010).
2018/2019 academic year, 1st semester: Narratives
Chronicles and histories have been the privileged sources of research into the medieval past, only partly displaced in the last half century by medievalists’ growing appetite for charters and institutional records. More generally, a narrative element is inherent in most medieval written accounts; even charters and diplomas would sometimes relate a story in their prologue as backdrop for the dispositive clauses. The pitfalls of approaching narratives as transparent windows into the past are now clear, hence medievalists’ increased attention to the performative and culturally-constructed nature of our sources. In this spirit, the seminar will discuss the impact of genre conventions, auctorial agendas, and the expectations of the audience. Participants are invited to bring to the roundtable discussions their own experience and concerns with narrative sources. Lastly, we will consider the role of story-telling – in contrast with ‘analysis’ – in our own writing about the past.
Monthly meetings on Monday at 17.00 at ICUB (Str. Dimitrie Brândză nr. 1)
Monday, 22 October 2018, 17h – Introductory roundtable: from ancient to modern historical narratives
- Ginzburg, Threads and Traces: True, False, Fictive: Intro and ch. 1, pp. 1-24;
- Ricoeur, Time and Narrative: vol. 1, ch. 4 ‘Threefold mimesis’, pp. 52-76;
- Davis, Fiction in the Archives: pp. 1-11, 15-25, 36-48.
Monday, 26 November 2018, 17h – Roundtable discussion of Gregory of Tours
- Auerbach, Mimesis: ch. 4, pp. 77-95;
- Goffart, Narrators of Barbarian History: ch. 3, pp. 112-19, 153-74, 183-97, 203-34.
Iulia Nițescu (ICUB Humanities), Narratives of identity in late-fifteenth-century Muscovite dynastic marriages
Monday, 10 December 2018, 17h – Chronicles in historical context: patronage, the audience’s expectations, and veracity
- Spiegel, Romancing the Past, pp. 1-14, 20-23, 53-54, 214-68;
- Madgearu, Romanians in Gesta Hungarorum, pp. 21-41, 86-105.
Monday, 21 Januray 2019, 17h – Narratives in historical writing
- Currie, Sterelny, In defence of story-telling, pp. 14-21
The theme for 2017/2018 is Understanding Medieval Violence.
I am gonna get medieval on you! These words, spoken by one of the characters of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, blatantly illustrate the widespread idea that violence was deeply embedded within medieval societies. Historical fiction and, more recently, fantasy fiction, made gory violence a trademark of the Middle Ages, an unmistakable sign of civilizational backwardness. But just as the pop culture reading of medieval violence grew more simplistic, the scholarly understanding of it became more nuanced. Violence has been interpreted as instrumental, communicative, symbolic, practical, emotional, strategic, socially constructed, discursive, performative, and the list could go on. A vast array of social and humanistic disciplines were brought into play to shed light on the practices of violence. This year’s theme, Understanding Medieval Violence, aims to explore the ways medieval people, victims, perpetrators and spectators, understood and conceptualized violence.
The seminar meets every month during the academic year at ICUB, 1 Dimitrie Brândză St., in the Seminar Room.
First semester (Oct. – Dec. 2017)
Thursday, 26 October 2017, 18.15 – Roundtable discussion, Medieval violence: a socio-historical approach
- Brown, ‘Violence and the medieval historian’;
- Skoda, ‘Grammars of violence’, in Medieval Violence, p. 18-50;
- Hyams, ‘Was there really such a thing as feud in the High Middle Ages?’, in Vengeance in the Middle Ages, 151-75.
Thursday, 23 November 2017, 17.30 – Roberto Biolzi (Université de Lausanne), Warfare and violence in late-medieval Savoy
Tuesday, 5 December 2017, 17h – Roundtable discussion, From justified to sacred violence
Second semester (March – June 2018)
Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 17h – Roundtable discussion of primary sources, Bathing in blood: the Jerusalem temple massacre (1099)
Wednesday, 18 April 2018,17h – Cătălin Țăranu (University of Bucharest), Violence in Heroic Cultures
Wednesday, 23 May 2018, 17h – Marian Coman (University of Bucharest), Quantifying violence: Counting the dead in Vlad the Impaler’s Danubian campaign (1462)
Wednesday, 13 June 2018,17h – Oana Cojocaru (University of Bucharest), Youth gangs and violence in Byzantium
The theme for 2016/2017 is From Lordship to State.
It is increasingly clear that the earlier grand narrative of straightforward continuity between medieval institutional reforms and the birth of the modern state needs to be complicated in significant ways, but a nuanced understanding of the medieval institutions and practices remains essential for placing European political modernity in historical perspective. This year’s theme, From Lordship to State, charts both the diversity of medieval political forms and, more specifically, the trajectory of medieval polities from the seigneuries of the post-Carolingian era to the centralized kingdoms of the later Middle Ages.
The seminar meets on alternate Mondays from 17.00 at ICUB Humanities, 1 Dimitrie Brândză St.
First semester (Sept. 2016 – Jan. 2017)
An informal or ‘get-together’ meeting will take place on 10 October at 17.00.
Monday, 17 October 2016, 17h – Medieval history, modern theory (roundtable discussion)
- Ph. Buc, Dangers of Ritual (2001): Introduction and chapters 3, 5, 6, and 7 (pp. 1-13, 88-123,159-263).
Monday, 31 October 2016, 17h – Beyond ‘feudalism’: the alternatives (roundtable discussion)
- Brown, ‘The tyranny of a construct’, Am. Hist. Rev. 79 (1974);
- Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals (1994), chapters 1-3, 6.5-6.12, and 7 (pp. 1-75, 199-323);
- Cheyette, review of Fiefs and Vassals, Speculum 71;
- Feudalism, ed. S. Bagge et al. (2011), the chapters by S. Reynolds and H. Debax (pp. 15-27 and 77-101).
Monday, 14 November 2016, 17h – Lords and fiefs: the documentary record (sources seminar)
- Conventum between William V of Aquitaine and Hugh of Lusignan;
- Galbert of Bruges, De multro, traditione et occisione, ed. J. Rider (1994), chapters 7-10, 31, 47, 51, 55-56;
- Actes de la famille Porcelet d’Arles, ed. M. Aurell (2001), documents nos. 73, 89, 119, 155,172, 363, 611, 623.
Monday, 28 November 2016, 17h – Centre and periphery in medieval Europe (roundtable discussion)
Monday, 12 December 2016, 17h – Land and lordship in medieval Wallachia (15th-16th c.) (Marian Coman, work in progress talk)
Monday, 16 January 2017, 17h – Identifying the inhabitants of Morlacchia. About moving people and places beyond the border of Dalmatia ( 15th-16th c). (Dana Caciur, work in progress talk)
Second semester (Feb. – June 2017)
Monday, 20 February 2017, 17h – The twelfth century: birth of the modern state? (roundtable discussion)
- Th. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century (2008);
- S. Reynolds, ‘Government and community, 1024-1204’, NCMH vol. 4 (2004).
Monday, 6 March 2017, 17h – A medieval lordship: Picquigny (I. Epurescu-Pascovici, working paper)
Monday, 20 March 2017, 17h – Accountability: medieval to modern (roundtable discussion)
- Murray, Reason and Society (1978);
- J. Sabapathy, Officers and Accountability (2014);
- J. Soll, The Reckoning (2014).
Monday, 3 April 2017, 17h – The late-medieval advances in government (roundtable discussion)
- J. Watts, The making of Polities (2009);
- Cl. Gauvard, De grace especial (1991).
Monday, 19 June 2017, 17h – Confesionalizare si stat in Moldova la inceputurile modernitatii (sec. XVII-XVIII) (Rafael Chelaru, work in progress talk)