IMC 2026: Sessions
Session 1323: Loyalty across the Middle Ages, 500-1500, IV: Loyalty and Society
Wednesday 8 July 2026, 16:30-18:00
| Sponsor: | 'Loyalty in the Medieval World' Research Group |
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| Organisers: | Eleanor Bailey, School of History, Philosophy & Digital Humanities, University of Sheffield Katy Bennett, Department of History, University of York |
| Moderator/Chair: | Josh Baker-Cox, Canterbury Christ Church University |
| Paper 1323-a | 'Semper ei fideles fuerunt': Followers, Supporters, and Loyalties in Exile in the Norman Worlds, 9th-12th Centuries (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy, Social History |
| Paper 1323-b | 'As a loyal lessee should': Loyalty and Leasehold in Flanders and Cambrésis, 1200-1400 (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy, Social History |
| Paper 1323-c | The Cheese and the Corpses: A Microhistorical Approach to Loyalty in Lancastrian Normandy, 1417-1431 (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Politics and Diplomacy, Social History |
| Abstract | The ‘Loyalty in the Medieval World’ network has selected proposals which explore the intersections between the concept of ‘loyalty’ and the IMC 2026 theme of ‘temporalities’. We asked speakers to consider several questions. Was there was a shift in how the concept of loyalty was used and perceived by people across the Middle Ages? To what extent, if at all, were bonds of loyalty an archaic predecessor to the coercive potential of a centralising medieval ‘state’? How did the language (e.g. treue, fides, leal), theories, and practices of loyalty change or stay the same in the medieval period? What can the study of loyalty do for the historian of medieval political society? These sessions will explore these questions and contribute to the development of 'loyalty studies' within medieval history. The fourth session, 'Loyalty across the Middle Ages, c. 500-1500 I: Loyalty and Society', will explore how the concept of 'loyalty' was used in the social interactions of medieval people who were protecting their interests. |