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IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 614: Networks & Neighbours, II: Friendship and Warfare between Neighbours in the Early Middle Ages

Tuesday 7 July 2015, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Networks & Neighbours
Organiser:Otávio Luiz Vieira Pinto, School of History, University of Leeds / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)
Moderator/Chair:Paul Fouracre, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester
Paper 614-a'Goodbye Blue Sky': Bishops and Their Obligations during Wartime, 400-550
(Language: English)
Glenn McDorman, Department of History, Princeton University
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Military History, Political Thought, Religious Life
Paper 614-bWhy Do Aristocrats Have Friends?: Solidarities in the North Sea World
(Language: English)
Anthony Mansfield, Research Institute for the Humanities, Keele University
Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Mentalities, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 614-cTravel and Technology: Behind the Ideas of Movement in Early Medieval Northern Britain
(Language: English)
Helen Lawson, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Technology
Abstract

This session explores how various early medieval groups negotiated shifting and occasionally traumatic relationships with their neighbours. Glenn McDorman examines the role of bishops during wartime, investigating the extent to which there was a universal understanding of a bishop’s obligations to his flock in times of military crisis. Yaniv Fox considers whether the international policies of the Merovingian courts in the early 6th century amounted to a coherent 'foreign policy'. While Anthony Mansfield examines the mechanics of lordship in the North Sea world, comparing the nature and benefits of central and regional connections in 11th-century England, Normandy and Norway.