IMC 2017: Sessions

Maritime borders manifest themselves as particularly open and fluid spaces of exchange - both pacific and violent - between individuals, collectives, political powers, civilisations etc. In this session we will focus on an analysis of one aspect of these relations in the Iberian sphere during the Late Middle Ages: aggression and violence. Dynamics of conflict as well as collaboration and solidarity developed around activities of both regulated and illicit violence in medieval maritime borders. We propose a comparative approach to some of these fields (military naval expeditions, piracy, captivity) in the Castilian Atlantic area and the Catalano-Aragonese Mediterranean space. We shall discuss the different manifestations of identity and otherness displayed by the seamen, combatants, merchants, travellers and authorities who operated in these hispanic maritime borders. These ambiguous concepts conditioned the performance of the profession of arms, objectives of economic benefit or social elevation, and even the perception of the other as a partner or an adversary, a comrade or a potential or actual victim.

*This session is part of the Research Coordinated Project 'Gentes y navíos en las fronteras marítimas bajomedievales. Perspectivas comparadas desde el Mediterráneo y el Atlántico (People and ships on late medieval maritime frontiers. Comparative perspectives from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic)' (Ref. HAR 2013-48433-C2), funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and and Competitiveness.