| Abstract | Paper -a:
A community represents one component of an empire but Christine Carpenter has rightly railed against the abuse of the term 'community' by historians and many others. It is used so vaguely today that it has lost much of its meaning. This paper looks at sources from sociology, biology, archaeology, and psychology and attempts to provide the main attributes of a community. It will examine the medieval usage as well as its modern meaning. Using the derived attributes of community it will consider the potential communities within Bristol in the 15th century, especially that of the Welsh and Irish immigrants, and will compare and contrast their fortunes as the century unfolded.
Paper -b:
Traditionally, we associate the notion of Empire to that of Cultural Renaissance, as illustrated in the cases of the Isidorian, Carolingian and Ottonian Renaissances. This study looks at how ideas interact with power in historical episodes that are considered 'non-imperial'. Indeed, we will be selecting three moments at three different geographical locations that correspond to 'non-imperial' moments to analyse their historical production: 9th-century French historiography, 9th-10th century Asturian historiography and 11th and 12th Portuguese historiography. In each case and as a whole, we will look at whether it is possible to approach these historiographies with the notions of Empire as a systematic reality, of cultural Renaissance as cultural drive and whether the geographic element has any bearing on how history is written (geoepistemology). This study revisits the notions of Empire and Renaissance and the links between them.
|
|---|
