In 1970, Richard Southern wrote that in England it was during the central Middle Ages that ‘government by ritual came to an end, and government by administration began’. Yet the last decade of research has shown that rituals and administrative government did not stand apart, but continued to co-exist under both the strong Anglo-Saxon state and its central medieval successor. The purpose of this conference is to explore the relationship between ritualised communication, the lordship of kings and magnates, and government in the context of the comparatively powerful structure of the English state. Key topics for discussion will be both how inspiration from early medieval and continental studies of rituals can advance studies of the English Middle Ages, and how study of the rituals of medieval England, with its rich source materials and particular social and political conditions, can contribute to the wider debate about ritualised communication in the medieval period.
The conference will take place on 16 July 2013 between 09h00 and 18h30. The conference is hosted by the New College of the Humanities but will be held in room LG6 of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on Keppel Street, right next to Senate House. Registration cost: £5 for students/£10 for salaried attendees, to be paid on the day. In order to register please email the organisers at RitualsConference@hotmail.co.uk no later than 7 July.
Organisers: Lars Kjær (NCH), Levi Roach (Exeter), Sophie Ambler (KCL)
Programme :
Bjorn Weiler (Aberystwyth) – Introductory Remarks
Charles Insley (Manchester) – Ottonians with Pipe Rolls? Kingship and Symbolic Action in the Kingdom of the English
Levi Roach (Exeter) – Full of Sound and Theory Signifying Nothing? Social Anthropology and the “Late Anglo-Saxon State »
Benjamin Wild (Sherborne) – King Henry III and the Power of Aesthetics: Art & Ceremony in Thirteenth-Century England
Sophie Ambler (KCL) – Making and Re-Making the King: the Ritual power of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Thirteenth-Century England
Christopher Tilley (KCL) – « Communities of the Mind »: Ritual and Perception of Collective Political Identity in Thirteenth-Century England
Kenneth Duggan (KCL) – The Ritualistic Importance of Gallows in England in the High Middle Ages
Lars Kjær (NCH) – Hunting, Sociability and the Experience of Royal Favour
Nicholas Vincent (UEA) – Concluding Remarks
Informations pratiques :
Tuesday, July 16 2013
NCH
LG6
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
Registration deadline: Sunday, July 7 2013, 9:00am
How to register: RitualsConference
hotmail.co.uk
hotmail.co.ukSource de l’information : Institute of Historical Research
L'Agenda des Médiévistes 