IMC 2021: Sessions
Session 805: Writing Medieval History / Reading Medieval History, IV: Getting the Message - Historians and Diplomats, c. 1100-1300
Tuesday 6 July 2021, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Arts & Humanities Research Council / Haskins Society |
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| Organisers: | Owain Wyn Jones, School of History, Welsh History & Archaeology, Bangor University Emily A. Winkler, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford / Department of History, University College London |
| Moderator/Chair: | Dauvit Broun, School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow |
| Paper 805-a | Messages and Their Messengers: Where History and Diplomacy Meet (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities, Philosophy, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Paper 805-b | The World to Come: Attitudes to the Future in 12th-Century Chronicles (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Paper 805-c | Historians and Diplomats in Angevin England (Language: English) Index terms: Administration, Historiography - Medieval, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Abstract | Historical writing is often described as appropriating or using the past to reinforce present aims or advance colonial values. This comparative session, based on the organisers' AHRC-funded project, investigates medieval history-writing not as a replacement strategy, but as a medium for reflecting on relationships between people in the past. How did diplomats use history, and how did historians portray diplomacy? To what extent did historians reflect on the importance of forging, maintaining and altering diplomatic relationships between rulers in the Middle Ages? How did historians and diplomats try to break down the borders and barriers between 'then' and 'now' in efforts to create mutual understanding in the past - and between reader and writer? In particular, the session highlights the relevance of considering Wales in a European context rather than a Celtic one. |