IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 318: Marginal Empires?: Imperial Practices and Representations on the Borders of Europe, I

Sponsor:	Department of History, University of Sydney
Organiser:	Hélène Sirantoine, Department of History, University of Sydney
Moderator/Chair:	Jean-Philippe Genet, Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris (LAMOP - UMR 8589), Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne
Paper 318-a	When Being King is Not Enough: Early Imperial Experiments in the Spanish Kingdom of León, 9th-12th Centuries (Language: English) Hélène Sirantoine, Department of History, University of Sydney Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy, Rhetoric
Paper 318-b	The Almohad Empire: The Arab-Berber Ideology of a Muslim Caliphate, 12th-13th Centuries (Language: English) Pascal Buresi, CNRS-ERC FP7-2010-StG 263361 Index terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy, Rhetoric
Abstract	Besides the orderly and sustainable models of Roman, Carolingian, Ottonian, and Byzantine empires, occasional imperial experiences developed in some areas of medieval Europe. In these two sessions we will address several of these experiments originated in two regions on the borders of the Latin Christendom as well as the Islamic world: Brittany and the Iberian Peninsula. On which historical and symbolic grounds did they rely? What were their lexicological manifestations? How did they create legitimacy? The papers presented will examine these issues and question the marginality of these imperial ideas.