IMC 2014: Sessions
Session 1023: Empire and Its Northern Borderlands: Advantages of Being Peripheral
Wednesday 9 July 2014, 09.00-10.30
| Sponsor: | International Research Training Group 'Baltic Borderlands', Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald / University of Tartu |
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| Organiser: | Anti Selart, Institute of History & Archaeology, University of Tartu |
| Moderator/Chair: | Kurt Villads Jensen, Department of History, Syddansk Universitet, Odense |
| Paper 1023-a | Whom to Marry?: The Pomeranian Marriage Policy, c. 1200-1400 (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Politics and Diplomacy, Social History |
| Paper 1023-b | Empire and the Relevance of the Sea during the Period of the Kalmar Union (Language: English) Index terms: Economics - Trade, Local History, Maritime and Naval Studies, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Paper 1023-c | Livonia as a Member of the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th Century (Language: English) Index terms: Law, Local History, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Abstract | The session discusses methods and options of imperial policy in its northern European periphery in the late Middle Ages. They included matrimonial alliances, naval activities, and elaborated diplomacy. The central question is how local actors and the imperial centers could found a balance between their interests; on the one hand to establish some control in the periphery and, on the other hand, how to make use of the potential 'central' support for entirely private interests. The Duchy of Pomerania maintained a complex kinship network between the Holy Roman Empire, Denmark, and Poland. The island of Gotland represents exemplarily the bridging role of a territory on the crossroads of political and economic interests. In Livonia the Teutonic Order used its influence in the imperial court to achieve its own political ends in the region, while trying to prevent direct contact between the local bishops and the Emperors albeit the former were imperial princes. |