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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 812: Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantine, and Islamic Spheres: Travelling Rulers and Exploring Subjects, IV

Tuesday 13 July 2010, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Society for the Medieval Mediterranean
Organiser:Jo Van Steenbergen, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, Universiteit Gent
Moderator/Chair:Jo Van Steenbergen, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, Universiteit Gent
Paper 812-aEast, West, Home's Best: Constans II's Move to Italy as a Case Study in the Problems Faced by Mediterranean Rulers Who Left their Capitals
(Language: English)
Thomas Brown, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 812-bEmperors on the Move: Itinerant Rulership in 13th-Century Byzantium
(Language: English)
Julia Jedamski, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest / Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Politics and Diplomacy
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.