IMC 2013: Sessions

By approaching conflict as a social practice that helps shape communities, the groups involved and their motivations may be interpreted as reflecting a wider picture of political competition in a specific historical context. Using comparative examples from both medieval Europe and Asia, this session will explore the ways social conflict appears explicitly and implicitly in a variety of media such as historiographical narratives, court records, wall paintings, and even geographical descriptions. Additionally, it will demonstrate how these accounts of conflict may be used to indicate the social tensions of both the original context of the conflict itself and the period when it was recorded or retold.
To that end, Maria Mair will look at how authors of Austrian vernacular verse chronicles in the late 13th century used conflict narratives to establish and reinforce the political position of their own social groups and to discuss concepts of 'good' and 'bad' community. Fabian Kümmeler will then examine the role of conflicts in the everyday life of rural communities in late medieval Dalmatia on the basis of court records using pastoral nomads acting in confrontation with their urban, patrician, and rural counterparts as an example. Finally, Daniel Mahoney will look at the political competition and conflict within the tribal community of highland South Arabia as manifested in the genealogies, geographies, and anecdotes found in texts of the early medieval period.