Skip to main content

IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 1035: Making of Europe, I: Diplomacy in Southern Medieval Europe

Wednesday 5 July 2023, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:British Academy / Leverhulme Small Grants
Organisers:Barbara Bombi, School of History, University of Kent
Pietro Mocchi, Centre for Medieval Studies University of Kent
Moderator/Chairs:Jenny Benham, School of History, Archaeology & Religion, Cardiff University
Barbara Bombi, School of History, University of Kent
Paper 1035-aNetworking the Written Word: Producing and Keeping Records of Diplomatic Pacts in the Iberian Peninsula, 1096-1325
(Language: English)
Maria João Branco, Instituto de Estudos Medievais, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Hermínia Maria Vasconcelos Vilar, Centro Interdisciplinar de História, Culturas e Sociedades, Universidade de Évora
Index terms: Administration, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1035-bSicilian Noblemen and Diplomacy in the 14th Century
(Language: English)
Patrizia Sardina, Dipartimento Culture e Società, Università degli Studi di Palermo
Index terms: Administration, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1035-cConflict and Diplomacy between Fiction and Reality: Gregory XII and Benedict XIII on the Eve of the Council of Pisa, 1408
(Language: English)
Gabriele Bonomelli, School of History, University of Kent
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract

The study of medieval diplomacy is a helpful lense to examine complex and long-term social and political phenomena. It is also a multifaceted field that requires historians to balance different levels of enquiry, from the political to the social, from the abstraction of ideologies and values to the more material aspects of primary sources. This panel will investigate three different case studies with a geographical focus on Southern Europe, from Portugal to Italy. The first paper will concentrate on the materiality of records of diplomatic agreements in medieval Iberia, thus shedding light onto their respective documentary cultures and record-keeping. Our second paper will overview the available sources to study Sicilian diplomacy in the late Middle Ages, and it will examine the biographies of the Sicilian aristocracy involved in diplomatic missions in the context of the Kingdom of Sicily's entanglement of connections and interests across the Mediterranean sea.The third paper will focus on fictitious epistles, often overlook historical sources, in order to better understand the vibrant dynamics of conflict and diplomacy leading up to the Council of Pisa (1409).