While recent scholarship has done much to illuminate early medieval frontiers, the relationship between the Carolingian frontier and its neighbouring societies has yet to be the focus of sustained, comparative discussion. This conference aims to initiate a dialogue between scholars of the Carolingian frontier and those of the societies it bordered, and in so doing to reach a better understanding of the nature and extent of contacts in frontier regions and the various manners in which these contacts – not to mention frontier regions themselves – were conceptualized. Moreover, it will explore the interplay between various types of contact – whether military, political, economic, social, or religious – and the various ways in which these contacts could underpin, or undermine, existing relationships, both between the local societies themselves and between political centres.

By bringing together an international group of established and postgraduate scholars whose work lies both inside and outside the Carolingian empire, this conference seeks not only to open up comparative perspectives, but also to place the Carolingian empire within its global historical context. Alongside seven invited papers, proposals are welcomed from postgraduate and postdoctoral students whose work focuses on the Carolingian frontier, and particularly from scholars of the societies which the Carolingians bordered.

Programme :

Friday 4th July
Room 6, Cambridge History Faculty, the Sidgwick site (off West Road)

12.30 – 1.00 : Registration
1.00 – 1.10 : Welcome – Ingrid Rembold, Fraser McNair, Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

1.10 – 2.40
Chair: Michael Humphreys (Cambridge)

Lorenzo Bondioli (Oxford) – A Carolingian frontier? Louis II, Basil I and the Muslims of Bari
José Miguel Rossello Esteve and Isabel Busquets Porcel (Granada) – The Balearic Islands and the Carolingian Empire: an unknown relationship
2.40 – 3.00 : Tea

3.00 – 4.30
Chair: Fraser McNair (Cambridge)

Eduardo Manzano Moreno (Madrid) – The Carolingians and al-Andalus: An Overview
Sam Ottewill-Soulsby (Cambridge) – “The Path of Loyalty”: Charlemagne and his Muslim Allies in Spain

Saturday 5th July
JCR TV room, Sidney Sussex College, Sidney Street

9.00 – 10.30
Chair: Helena Carr (East Anglia)

Jonathan Jarrett (Birmingham) – “Completely detached from the kingdom of the Franks”? Political identity in Catalonia in the very late Carolingian era
Arthur Westwell (Cambridge) – Sundering the West: The Byzantine conception of western borders and its impact on the mission to Moravia
10.30 – 11.00 : Tea

11.00 – 12.30
Chair: Corinna Matlis (Cornell)

Caroline Brett (Cambridge) – The Breton March: contested frontier or power vacuum?
Fraser McNair (Cambridge) – Bretons, Normans, and the question of ethnicity on the tenth-century Breton frontier
12.30 – 1.30. Lunch

1.30 – 3.00.
Chair: Rosamond McKitterick

Grégory Girard (Lyon) – Burgundy and the Carolingians: reconquer, reorganise, integrate and conserve
Wojciech Falkowski (Warsaw) – Neustria: competing influences, persistent traditions, and ongoing rivalries
3.00 – 3.30 : Tea

3.30 – 5.00.
Chair: Bernhard Zeller (Vienna)

Ingrid Rembold (Cambridge) – The Saxon wars and the Obodrites
Ivo Štefan (Prague) – Charlemagne and « Wild » East. Transformation of Slavic World in Carolingian Period
6.30 : Conference Dinner

Sunday 6th July
JCR TV room, Sidney Sussex College, Sidney Street

9.00 – 10.30
Chair: Nora Berend (Cambridge)

Robert Smith (Cambridge) – Hedeby after Ansgar: the continued contacts with Carolingian Christianity in the border emporia of Hedeby
Jens Christian Moesgaard (Copenhagen) – Carolingian coins in Denmark: commerce and prestige
10.30 – 11.00 : Tea

11.00 – 12.30
Chair: Helmut Reimitz (Princeton)

Joachim Henning (Frankfurt) – title to be announced.
Daniel Melleno (Berkeley) – Between borders: the place of the Slavs in the Northern politics of the Danes and Franks in the ninth century

Informations pratiques :
The Carolingian frontier and its neighbours
Friday, July 4 2014 – Sunday, July 6 2014

Faculty of History, Cambridge University
Faculty of History
Cambridge
United Kingdom

Organisers:
Ingrid Rembold (Cambridge University)
Fraser McNair (Cambridge University)
Samuel Ottewill-Soulsby (Cambridge University)

Registration for the conference is now open! If you would like to register, please fill out the form in the PDF below and send it to the address given. If you have any questions, please e-mail thecarolingianfrontier@gmail.com.

Source de l’information : Cambridge University