IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 518: Aspects of Rulership in Byzantium, the Islamic World, and the Latin West: The Material Dimension of Power, III

Organiser:	Björn Weiler, Department of History & Welsh History, Aberystwyth University
Moderator/Chair:	Eric J. Hanne, Department of History, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Paper 518-a	Making Gold as a Means for Material Wealth?: Medieval Islamic Debates on the Legitimacy of Alchemy (Language: English) Christopher Braun, Seminar for Semitic & Arabic Studies, Freie Universität, Berlin Index terms: Politics and Diplomacy, Social History
Paper 518-b	The Emperor's New Clothes: Moral Aspects of Carolingian Royal Costume (Language: English) Rachel Stone, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge Index terms: Politics and Diplomacy, Social History
Abstract	These sessions assess the role of wealth and of the material context of power in three broad, overlapping categories of inquiry: the role of wealth in politics, its display both internally (to one's subjects) and externally (to neighbours, peers and distant rulers); the sources of wealth (how did rulers acquire the means to display wealth? Do the sources of wealth tell us something about the political culture of specific spheres); the moral framework of material power (what were the limitations imposed upon both the acquisition and the exercise of material wealth? What were there expectations as to how wealth should be spent?).