The Carolingian dynasty (751–987) ruled the last pan-European empire of the middle ages, a territory spanning over one million square kilometres at its height. In the late ninth century, however, this empire began to disintegrate, and the tenth century has long been depicted as a period of cultural and political decline. This two-day conference will explore the relationship between political authority and textual production in Europe during the late ninth and tenth centuries. It aims to contribute to a body of research which is increasingly bringing into question traditional notions and assumptions about the collapse of the Carolingian empire. This will be the first British conference devoted specifically not only to this subject, but also to this period. It will provide a forum for leading specialists, young researchers and postgraduate students from around the world to share ideas and forge new contacts in a friendly yet rigorous intellectual environment. By drawing together recent research about the interaction between written texts and attempts to exert political authority from across the late/former Carolingian world, this event promises to make a significant contribution to our understanding of this formative but neglected period of European history.

9h00-9h50 : Registration / coffee

9h50-10h00 : Welcome

Shane Bobrycki – Gangs and Bands in Late Carolingian West Francia between Politics and Texts

Warren Brown – Traveling disputes: changing images of conflict in Carolingian formula books

Matthew Innes – Who made it ‘eine Quellenarme Zeit’? Textual production, interpretative control and the documentary sources of late Carolingian and post-Carolingian history

11h30-12h00 – Coffee

Roberta Cimino – An empress and her “wills”: Royal widowhood and political struggles in post-Carolingian Italy (c. 898 – 923)

Giacomo Vignodelli – Politics, prophecy and cryptic text: Atto of Vercelli’s Perpendiculum

Ross Balzaretti – Representations of Hugh of Arles (c. 885-948) and his family

13h30-14h30 – Lunch

Robert Evans – Politics, warfare, and morality in Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés’ Bella Parisiacae Urbis

Christopher Heath – Audite omnes fines terre orrore cum tristitia: Louis II and the Rythmus de Captivitate

Charles West – The Lost Kingdom and the lost manuscript: the ‘Collection’ of Bishop Adventius of Metz

16h00-16h30 – Coffee

Fraser McNair – The politics of being Norman in the reign of Richard the Fearless

Edward Roberts – Justifying proprietary claims: Flodoard, Conrad the Red and the Remigiusland dispute

Geoffrey Koziol – Sacred History, Written Texts, and Young Girls’ Visions in Flodoard’s Histories

18h00-19h30 – Wine reception

20h00 – Conference dinner

9h00-9h45 – Coffee

Megan Welton – Three Emperors, Thirty Years, One Constant: Political Networks and Ottonian Charters for Venice, 967-992

Rob Houghton – The balance of power in tenth century Italy: A charter of Lothar II

Levi Roach – The Diplomas of Otto III and the Politics of Reform in the Regnum Italicum

11h15-11h45 – Coffee

Giovanni Isabella – Building the kingship: the legitimation of Otto I in Ottonian narrative sources (c. 955-975)

Paul Fouracre – Revisiting the Vita Dagoberti III

Philippe Depreux – Title TBC

13h15-14h15 – Lunch

Giorgia Vocino – From “Doctor Ambrose” to “Apostle Barnabas”. Strategies of legitimation and hagiographic literature in Late Carolingian Milan (9th-11th c.)

Frederik Keygnaert – Political Discourse on the Bishop’s Corrective Authority in Carolingian and Post-Carolingian Normative Texts

Conrad Leyser – Church without Empire: the Tenth-Century Take Off

15h45-16h15 – Closing remarks