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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 208: Citizenship Discourses in the Early Middle Ages, I: The Power of Words

Monday 1 July 2019, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) / Onderzoeksschool Mediëvistiek, Universiteit Utrecht
Organiser:Els Rose, Onderzoekinstituut voor Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Moderator/Chair:Ian N. Wood, School of History, University of Leeds
Paper 208-aCitizens and Un-Citizens: Religious Boundary Maintenance in the Theodosian Code
(Language: English)
Robert Flierman, Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies, Universiteit Utrecht
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Law
Paper 208-bGod's Word and the City: Tracing Citizenship Discourses in Latin Sermons of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Merel de Bruin-van de Beek, Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies, Universiteit Utrecht
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Sermons and Preaching
Paper 208-cChristian Conceptualizations of Libertas
(Language: English)
Els Rose, Onderzoekinstituut voor Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Religious Life
Abstract

Based at Utrecht University, the innovative project, Citizenship Discourses in the Early Middle Ages, 400-1100 (2017-2022), explores the impact of citizenship terminology in the Latin world 'after Rome'. While citizenship faded as a socio-political concept in the new social and political realities of the early medieval West, the vocabulary of legal documents and Christian writings, as well as the visualisation of the city and citizenship in material sources, persisted. Early medieval authors and artists utilized this complex terminology and imagery linked to ancient Greco-Roman and biblical citizenship. Our two proposed sessions will present and discuss the verbal and visual sources in which citizenship 'vocabulary' was employed. We will analyze strategies of (self) definition of individuals and communities through these written and visualized strategies of inclusion and belonging as well as disqualification and exclusion.