IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 512: Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantine, and Islamic Spheres: Travelling Rulers and Exploring Subjects, I

Tuesday 13 July 2010, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:	Society for the Medieval Mediterranean
Organiser:	Jo Van Steenbergen, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, Universiteit Gent
Moderator/Chair:	Jonathan Shepard, Independent Scholar, Oxford
Paper 512-a	Muslim Rulers Visiting the Imperial City (11th-13th Centuries) (Language: English) Alexander Beihammer, Department of History & Archaeology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 512-b	Passing on Political Information between Major Powers: The Key Role of Ambassadors between Byzantium and its Neighbours during the Middle Byzantine Period (Language: English) Nicolas Drocourt, UFR d'histoire, histoire de l'art & archéologie, Université de Nantes Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 512-c	The Franciscan Mission to North Africa in the 13th Century (Language: English) Brett E. Whalen, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Abstract	As part of the ongoing series of interdisciplinary political culture strands held at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, since 2005, a set of four broadly comparative sessions are presented on the theme of 'travelling rulers and exploring subjects' in the Latin West, the Byzantine commonwealth and the Islamic world. These sessions consider how travel and exploration informed political culture; and how they affected the self-definition, practices, customs, and working assumptions of 'hegemonial' groups in all three spheres. The sessions' prime concern will be with itinerant rulership, elite pilgrimage, and foreign visits, and they will focus primarily on how each of these helped to shape (and re-shape) political culture both at home and abroad.