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IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 1314: The Transformation of the Roman World: Sessions in Honour of Ian N. Wood, IV

Wednesday 8 July 2015, 16.30-18.00

Organisers:Tim Barnwell, School of History, University of Leeds / Kısmet Press, Leeds
Ricky Broome, Leeds Institute for Clinical Trials Research (LICTR), University of Leeds
N Yavuz, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:Mayke de Jong, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Respondent:Stuart Airlie, School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow
Paper 1314-aPacus and His Brothers: A Romano-Alamannic Family from Post-Roman Heidelberg
(Language: English)
Ralph Mathisen, Department of History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Epigraphy, Historiography - Modern Scholarship
Paper 1314-bInformation Exchange on the Papal Estates of Sicily, c. 600
(Language: English)
Chris Wickham, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Index terms: Administration, Ecclesiastical History
Paper 1314-cWas Spain Different in the 8th Century?
(Language: English)
Ann R. Christys, Independent Scholar, Leeds
Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Abstract

This fourth session in honour of Ian N. Wood takes its name from the Transformation of the Roman World Project (1992-1998) sponsored by the European Science Foundation, where Wood was a co-ordinator. The project studied the origins of Europe and the emergence of European nations, going back to the crossroads of the end of the ancient world. Involving some 150 renowned European scholars, the research covered the exclusive geographical area of sub-Roman Europe and resulted with a series of edited volumes from Brill among other publications.

The three papers in this session will look at different aspects of the transformation of the Roman world. Ralph Mathisen will consider the evidence for the survival of Roman culture in Alamannia after the end of the Agri Decumates. This will be centred on a case-study of an inscription from post-Roman Alamannia that was discovered in Heidelberg in May 1901 which sheds light on other curious survivals of the Roman world. Chris Wickham will discuss the way information moved across the Mediterranean by investigating Gregory the Great’s letter collection which preserves a very large number of letters about the administration of the papacy’s extensive estates in Sicily. Finally, Ann R. Christys will look at the irruption of forces of the Islamic empire into the Iberian Peninsula in 711, which, together with the introduction of a new language and a new faith, appears to mark a turning point in the history of Spain. She will weigh limited earlier evidence against later historiography of the peninsula, which remembered 711 as an Arab/Muslim conquest.