Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	1510
Title	Rethinking the Medieval Frontier, I: Control and Autonomy in the Iberian Peninsula, 5th-10th Centuries
Date/Time	Thursday 7 July 2016: 09.00-10.30
Organiser	Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair	Naomi Standen, Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages (CeSMA), University of Birmingham
Paper 1510-a	The Long Frontier: The Ebro River Valley from the 5th to the 9th Centuries (Language: English) Sam Ottewill-Soulsby, Institutt for arkeologi, konservering og historie, Universitetet i Oslo Index Terms: Administration; Geography and Settlement Studies; Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1510-b	Heartland and Frontier from the Perspective of the Banu Qasi, 825-929 (Language: English) Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds Index Terms: Administration; Genealogy and Prosopography; Military History; Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1510-c	Battlefront Ter-Llobregat: Traces of Carolingian Forward Operating Bases in Catalonia (Language: English) Albert Pratdesaba, Grup de Recerca en Arqueologia Medieval i Postmedieval (GRAMP), Universitat de Barcelona Index Terms: Archaeology - Sites; Geography and Settlement Studies; Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract	Northern Iberia presents one of the most category-challenging of medieval frontier spaces, with more or less autonomous polities joining or separating from larger ones with bewildering ease. This session asks where the frontiers truly lay in such circumstances, and how they differed from any other political power around them. Ottewill-Soulsby takes a geographical focus on the Ebro Valley and examines its control over a long period, while Pratdesaba views a nearby area from an archaeological perspective. Jarrett meanwhile looks at the shifting control of a famous group of frontier lords, the Banu Qasi.