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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1727: Celebrating Excess?: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Court, Consumption, and Authority, III - Transgression, Controversy, and Consequences

Thursday 7 July 2016, 14.15-15.45

Organisers:Geoffrey Humble, Department of History, University of Birmingham
Sami Kalliosaari, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:Sami Kalliosaari, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Respondent:Björn Weiler, Department of History & Welsh History, Aberystwyth University
Paper 1727-aExcessive Love at the Court of Edward II
(Language: English)
Kit Heyam, School of English, University of Leeds
Index terms: Administration, Historiography - Medieval, Politics and Diplomacy, Religious Life
Paper 1727-bLargesse, Generosity, Theft, and Extraction: Reading Court Consumption in 'Mongol' Historiography
(Language: English)
Geoffrey Humble, Department of History, University of Birmingham
Index terms: Administration, Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Rhetoric
Paper 1727-cThe Rise of Wang Xizhi's Calligraphy in Emperor Taizong's Court
(Language: English)
Chen Xie, Department of History, University of Birmingham
Index terms: Art History - General, Historiography - Medieval
Abstract

Taking the feast as a starting point, these panels interrogate medieval writers’ assessments of rulership and authority via discussions of court consumption and ostentation. This session interrogates the expression of transgressive consumption. Kit Heyam exposes the use of biblical exempla to condemn royal patronage and favouritism by Edward II. Dustin Aaron brings together a wide range of source material to demonstrate the artistic and economic consequences of successively more extractive Capetian court policies. Geoffrey Humble demonstrates the selective employment of narrative techniques and imagery in Chinese and Persian portrayals of praiseworthy generosity and excessive taxation at early Mongol courts.