Leeds International Medieval Congress, 6-9 July 2026

Medieval Cistercians appear to have had a strong interest in history. Their libraries housed Classical and Medieval historical texts, and members of the Order authored annals and chronicles about their abbeys, universal chronicles, hagiographies of Cistercian saints, collections of Cistercian stories, and more. But what does it mean to write “Cistercian history”? What are the structural and thematic features that reveal how authors gave expression to the Order’s concerns and priorities? And are these features always present?

Our aim is to gather case studies from a variety of Cistercian contexts across Europe in order to explore the multiple strategies by which authors of historical texts reimagined the Order’s past, engaged with its historical tradition, and responded to the political, social, and religious challenges it faced – both locally and more broadly. We are particularly interested in works that, although written by authors belonging to the Order, may not appear, at first glance, to convey a distinctly Cistercian perspective: texts that omit references to the history of the author’s abbey, refrain from offering a specifically Cistercian interpretation of major events, or seem more invested in national self-definition or in compiling all available sources regardless of their non-Cistercian origin.

Possible themes may include, but are not limited to:

• Cistercian continuations and adaptations of existing chronicles
• Accounts of the founding of Cistercian abbeys in Cistercian chronicles
• Representations of other monastic communities in Cistercian historical writing
• Cistercian historians’ perspectives on secular affairs and political events
• Cistercian worldview and ideas in universal chronicles
• Cistercian historiography in “non-historical” texts (hagiography, exempla, etc.)

Please submit an abstract (max. 100 words), with your name, email address and academic affiliation, to Antoni Grabowski (agrabowski@ihpan.edu.pl) and Elisa Lonati (elisa.lonati@chartes.psl.eu) by 15 September 2025.