IMC 2026: Sessions

Paper 601-a:

Medieval animals constituted the crucial instruments of economy, food provision, fabric, transport, and labor. However, their importance for and relations with humans went beyond practical uses as commodities. This presentation focuses on the mining center of Brskovo in the medieval Kingdom of Serbia to explore the economic and socio-cultural roles animals played, by combining a zooarchaeological study and isotopic analysis with available written records and frescoes. As a pioneer study in the region, it offers valuable insights into the dynamic bonds between animals and humans, significantly enriching our knowledge about the medieval Balkan society and how it conceptualized the natural world and their place within it.

Paper 601-b:

Although the city walls were built with the intention of lasting forever, societal and political changes necessitated frequent modifications to them. This paper examines the city of Trogir, whose 12th-century ramparts were constructed by merging private and public interests during the formation of a medieval commune. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the established communal institutions were facing challenges in controlling city defence, as it depended on private towers and walls that were part of private houses, thereby balancing the powers of factions that owned them. Following the 1420 Venetian conquest, the new rulers were compelled to modify these fortifications to defend against potential rebellions, meaning that the function of fortifications shifted from external defence to internal control.

The remarkable preservation of Trogir's medieval urban fabric (as a UNESCO site), combined with systematic research of the medieval city archive, resulted in a GIS database containing all information on the fortifications. This enables a thorough understanding of the policies applied during their construction, as well as those of subsequent centuries, when emerging problems required adjustments to maintain functionality.

Paper 601-c:

This study investigates the relationship between castle ownership and power in medieval Hungary. While previous research emphasized castles as political currency in a zero-sum struggle between monarchs and the nobility—interpreting the nobility’s accumulation of castles as a sign of growing power—recent critiques propose a more nuanced, interdependent relationship. Using proportional hazards event-history and generalized linear models, this study examines the effects of castle ownership and changes in administrative structures on tenure in baronial offices and the royal council. The findings show no evidence that castles alone significantly extended tenure or alleviated dismissal risk. Instead, they point to a more complex interplay of political and social factors, including but not limited to castle ownership, lending support to the critique of the traditional narrative.

Paper 601-d:

Fortified churches are often treated as curiosities—architectural oddities that blur the line between sacred and military. This paper argues instead that they are central to understanding how medieval communities built resilience, authority, and identity through sacred space.

Current scholarship tends to oscillate between narrow architectural studies, broad descriptive overviews, or heritage-driven accounts. What is missing is a rigorous, comparative framework that explains why churches were fortified, where they were placed, and how their functions diverged across regions. This project addresses this gap by combining GIS-based spatial analysis—georeferencing, least cost path, viewshed, and intervisibility—with contextual archival and historical research. This method directly tests long-standing but unexamined assumptions: that fortified churches invariably crowned hilltops, formed defensive sightline networks, or derived primarily from crusader influence or Ottoman threat.

Focusing on Transylvania, where fortified churches acted as community bunkers, and comparing them with other locations like Slovenia, where they served as Habsburg military assets, this study demonstrates the profound variability hidden beneath the category of “fortified church.” These findings destabilize inherited nationalist and confessional narratives, showing instead how sacred architecture was redefined by fear, politics, and landscape. Fortified churches emerge not as anomalies, but as vital evidence of medieval Europe’s contested frontiers.