This year, from October 8th to the 10th, the Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM | NOVA-FCSH) and the municipality of Castelo de Vide are organizing the V International Conference on the Middle Ages, under the theme: The Governance of Medieval European Towns. The importance of this theme justified its selection for the International Conference on the Middle Ages that will take place in Castelo de Vide in 2020. Taking Christian and Muslim medieval Europe as the stage for reflexion, we wish to analyse the different issues generated by urban governance, drawing on diverse information sources and looking for ways to bring together perspectives from History, Archaeology, Art History, Literature, Law, among others. We invite researchers from any scientific area interested in the subject of urban governance in the medieval period to submit sessions or papers proposals within the range of the following thematic panels:
- Institutions from the urban power: Recruitment systems and functions
- The faces of governance: Urban elites
- Evidences of governance in medieval urbanism: Spaces and constructions
- Between the written and the lived: The municipal legislation and its application
- Governing the municipal space: The town
- Governing the municipal space: The countryside
- Good government of the town: managing adversity
- Bad government of the town: Fraud, corruption, arrogance
- Financial management of the town
- Municipal taxation: taxes and fees
- The relations between powers within the town
- The relations of the municipal power with external powers: cooperation and / or conflict
- Urban leagues and / or brotherhoods
- Discourses and representations about urban governance
- The construction of memory and urban identity
- Governing Castelo de Vide during the Middle Ages
The meeting will have three plenary conferences carried out by researchers invited by the organization and thematic sessions. Each session will integrate three paper presentations and will be 60 minutes long. Researchers who interested in participating can submit organized sessions or individual papers which will be gathered by the organizing committee in coherent panels. It will also be possible to submit poster proposals within the conference’s thematic panels. The meeting will also have a cultural program with guided tours and the Conference Dinner. It will also be launched the book which resulted from de IV International Conference on the Middle Ages (Castelo de Vide, October 2019). The conference languages are Portuguese, Spanish, French and English.