IMC 2023: Sessions
Session 1135: Making of Europe, II: Building Diplomatic Networks in the Late Middle Ages
Wednesday 5 July 2023, 11.15-12.45
| 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/Chair: | Barbara Bombi, School of History, University of Kent |
| Paper 1135-a | Arbitrator: Accountability and Personal Agency in Peace- and Treaty-Making in 15th-Century Italy (Language: English) Index terms: Law, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Paper 1135-b | Expenses, Envoys, and Epistles: Mechanisms of Informal Diplomacy in Later Medieval Europe (Language: English) Index terms: Administration, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Paper 1135-c | Politics, Diplomacy, and the Spoils of War: Robert Knolles' Indentures of War, 20 June 1370 (Language: English) Index terms: Military History, Politics and Diplomacy |
| Abstract | Diplomacy, both now and in the past, has often consisted of open displays of friendship and grand symbolic acts, and, at the same time, has been the result and practice of patient, secretive negotiations and the purposeful cultivation of personal relationships. This panel will explore this, only apparent, dichotomy, highlighting the strategic importance of informal negotiations and personal networks. The first paper will focus on the figure of the 'arbitrators', third party mediators in 15th-century Italian diplomacy, whose undefined legal status implied their personal and political accountability. The second paper will examine the royal accounts of the three king Edwards of England (1272-1377) to outline their strategies, and the relevant outcomes, in the building of diplomatic networks. The third and final paper will concentrate on Robert Knolle's indentures before England's military expedition to France (1370) and what they can tell us on the balance between royal and private interests. |