Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	301
Title	Problems and Possibilities of Early Medieval Diplomatic
Date/Time	Monday 12 July 2010: 16.30-18.00
Organiser	Martin Ryan, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester
Moderator/Chair	Martin Ryan, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester
Paper 301-a	Caliph, King, or Grandfather: Strategies of Legitimization on the Spanish March in the Reign of Lothar III (Language: English) Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds Index Terms: Charters and Diplomatics; Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 301-b	The Voice of Æthelred? (Language: English) Levi Roach, Department of History, University of Exeter Index Terms: Charters and Diplomatics; Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 301-c	The Reinvention of Athelstan in the North: The Forged Charters of Beverley and Ripon (Language: English) David Anthony Woodman, Robinson College, University of Cambridge Index Terms: Charters and Diplomatics; Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract	This session explores a number of the ways in which charters from, or purporting to be from, the early Middle Ages may be used as historical evidence. Jarrett mines the language of charters connected with four comital families in Catalonia for insight into strategies of legitimization at the end of the Carolingian era. Roach seeks out the voice King Æthelred 'the Unready' in the charters issued in his name, suggesting they shed light not only on the political events of the reign but on Æthelred's own reaction to them. Finally, Woodman explores the circumstances behind the production of a number of Middle English rhyming diplomata recording grants supposedly made by King Athelstan, documents so inconceivably Anglo-Saxon they have important things to tell us about medieval attitudes towards diplomatic.