Throughout the Middle Ages, powers such as kings and princes favoured towns as centres for organising space on a political, socio-economic, religious and cultural level. Towns were the place of residence and often passage for individuals with different social statuses, levels of wealth and knowledge, and sometimes religious beliefs. Urban communities took centre stage in different areas, from politics to economics, and in the promotion, circulation and dissemination of religious and cultural ideas and practices.
The study of medieval urban societies continues to be important and necessary to understand their composition, inequalities and complexity, as well as their role in the construction and experience of urban space. It also makes it possible to observe the different stages of life (childhood, youth, maturity and old age) of its inhabitants, their emotions and the relationships they established between themselves and with the outside world, and therefore the management and resolution of conflicts. These elements fuelled representations of urban society, both in discourses and practices and in material testimonies, which it is important to continue to understand and deepen.
Accordingly, this year (2024) on 3rd-5th October, the Institute of Medieval Studies (FCSH; Nova University, Lisbon) and the City Council of Castelo de Vide will host the IX International Conference on the Middle Ages, entitled: Urban societies in medieval Europe. With a focus on Christian, Islamic and Jewish Europe, researchers from any scientific discipline (History, Archaeology, History of the Art, Literature, among others) are invited to present proposals for sessions and/or individual presentations suitable for inclusion in the following thematic panels:
- Legal status of the towns’s inhabitants: norms and practice
- Spaces of social coexistence
- The intervention of powers in social life: strategies and tensions.
- Society and the exercise of power: rituals and practices
- Migratory movements within the town: emigration and immigration
- Social mobility: processes and practices
- Elements of social and economic differentiation
- Social conflicts and urban peace
- Urban devotion: rituals, practices and materialities
- The expression of emotions in the city
- Children in the town: practices and representations
- Young people in the town: practices and representations
- Old people in the town: practices and representations
- The family in the town: practices and representations
- Court society in the town: presence, reception and tensions
- The privileged in the town: nobles, clerics and monks
- Officials, literati and men of letters in the city: hierarchies and political participation
- Merchants in the town: organisation, hierarchies and political participation
- Artisans in the town: organisation, hierarchies and political participation
- Women in the town
- The marginalised: the poor, the insane, prostitutes, lepers and the sick
- Ethnic minorities: coexistence, tensions, representations and materiality
- Foreigners in the town: reception, organisation and tensions
- Visitors and passers-by: reception and tensions
- Urban societies in the face of threats: war, famine and disease
- The society in medieval Castelo de Vide
The Conference will comprise 4 plenary sessions featuring researchers invited by the organizing committee, along with separate thematic panels. Each panel will be made up of three paper presentations and will be 60 minutes long. Researchers wishing to participate are requested to submit proposals for whole panels and/or individual papers, the latter being arranged by the organizing committee into coherent panels. The Conference includes a full cultural program with guided tours, Conference Dinner, and a public Book Launch to present the published volume which brings together a selection of articles gathered from the VIII International Conference of the Middle Ages and the Autumn School of October 2023.
Please note, the working languages of the Conference are: Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English.
Keynote speakers:
Hermenegildo Fernandes (FLUL; CH-UL)
Marc Boone (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Universiteit Gent)
Elodie Lecuppre-
Fourth keynote speaker to be confirmed.
Scientific committee:
Adelaide Millán Costa (U. Aberta)
Alberto García Porras (U. Granada)
Antonio Collantes de Terán (U. de Sevilha)
Antonio Malpica Cuello (U. de Granada)
Arnaldo de Sousa Melo (U. do Minho)
Beatriz Arizaga Bolumburu (U. de Cantábria)
Catarina Tente (U. Nova de Lisboa)
Chris Wickham (U. of Oxford)
Damien Carraz (U. Toulouse II- Jean Jaurès)
David Igual Luis (U.de Castilla-La Mancha)
Denis Menjot (U. Lyon 2)
Dominique Valérian (U. Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Eloísa Ramirez Vaquero (U. Pública de Navarra)
Emilio Martín Gutiérrez (U. de Cadiz)
Florent Garnier (U. Toulouse Capitole)
Francisco Garcia Fitz (U. de Extremadura)
Giovanna Bianchi (U. of Siena)
Gregoria Cavero Domínguez (U. de León)
Hermenegildo Fernandes (U. Lisboa)
Hermínia Vilar (U. Évora)
Iria Gonçalves (U. Nova de Lisboa)
Isabel del Val Valdivieso (U. de Valladolid)
Jean Passini (EHESS-Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)
Jean-Luc Fray (U. Clermont Auvergne)
Jesús Solórzano Telechea (U. de Cantábria)
José Augusto Sottomayor-Pizarro (U. Porto)
José Avelino Gutiérrez González (U. de Oviedo)
José Manuel Nieto Soria (U. Complutense de Madrid)
Juan Vicente Garcia-Marsilla (U. de València)
Leslie Brubaker (U. of Birmingham)
Louis Sicking (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/Universiteit Leiden)
Luísa Trindade (U. de Coimbra)
María Asenjo González (U. Complutense de Madrid)
Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho (U. de Coimbra)
Maria João Branco (U. Nova de Lisboa)
Mário Barroca (U. do Porto)
Maxime L’Héritier (U. Paris 8)
Michel Bochaca (U. de La Rochelle)
Pere Verdés Pijuan (IMF-CSIC)
Peter Clark (U. de Helsínquia)
Philippe Bernardi (U. Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, LAMOP)
Raphaella Averkorn (U. Siegen)
Roser Salicrú Lluch (IMF-CSIC Barcelona)
Santiago Macias (U. Nova de Lisboa)
Sara Prata (U. Nova de Lisboa)
Sauro Gelichi (U. Ca ‘Foscari de Veneza)
Stéphane Péquignot (École Pratique des Hautes Études/Université PSL)
Wim Blockmans (U. de Leiden)
Organizing Committee:
Amélia Aguiar Andrade (IEM | NOVA FCSH)
Gonçalo Melo da Silva (IEM | NOVA FCSH)
Patrícia Martins (CMCV)
Secretariat:
Mariana Pereira (IEM | NOVA FCSH)
Scholarships to be awarded by IEM:
The Institute for Medieval Studies will give scholarships to cost the conference fees. Applications will be reviewed by the organizing committee. It will be considered the academic merits of the candidates and the reasons expressed in the motivation letter.
Applicants must send the following documents to the email address imcv@fcsh.unl.pt:
1) Curriculum vitae
2) Motivation letter (1 page, A4)
3) Paper proposal (relevance of the proposal for the knowledge of the conference theme. (max. 1 A4 page)
Supporters: IEM – NOVA FCSH; CMCV; FCT; NOVA FCSH
Transportation: The organization will provide transport by coach for speakers from campus NOVA-FCSH-Castelo de Vide-campus NOVA-FCSH.
The registration pack for speakers includes coach transport from Lisbon Airport – Castelo de Vide – Lisbon Airport, lunch during conference days, guided tour of Castelo de Vide and Conference Dinner.
Deadline for proposals for panels and papers: until 30th April
Panels, Papers and Posters acceptance: 7 May
Conference fees
Speakers (general): 70 €
University students (undergraduates, MA and PhD): 50 € IEM integrated researchers and students at NOVA FCSH: 40 €
More information: https://idade-media.castelodevide.pt/en_GB/
Call for Papers
IX JORNADAS call for papers text web ENG