Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	1730
Title	Rethinking the Medieval Frontier, II: Eastern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean
Date/Time	Thursday 9 July 2015: 14.15-15.45
Organiser	Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair	Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds
Paper 1730-a	Concepts of the Border in Early Medieval Central Europe (Language: English) Jakub Kabala, Department of History & Digital Studies, Davidson College, North Carolina Index Terms: Byzantine Studies; Ecclesiastical History; Political Thought; Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1730-b	Islands: Not the Last Frontier - Insular Models in the Early Medieval Byzantine Mediterranean, c. 650 - c. 850 (Language: English) Luca Zavagno, Department of History, Bilkent University, Ankara Index Terms: Archaeology - General; Byzantine Studies; Economics - General; Local History
Paper 1730-c	The Lord's Tournament Ground: The Performance of Nobility in Crusader Outremer (Language: English) Nicholas Paul, Department of History, Fordham University Index Terms: Crusades; Language and Literature - French or Occitan; Mentalities; Political Thought
Abstract	As part of an overdue retheorisisation of the medieval frontier, these three papers search out concepts of territory and border space in different non-western contexts. Kabala compares Latin, Slavonic, and Byzantine concepts of boundedness in the 8th and 9th centuries; Zavagno presents a new understanding of the role of the Mediterranean islands in the Byzantine world; and Paul shows the Crusader principalities of the Holy Land as a Western outpost whose primary concerns was not its enemies but its homeland. All three add to our understanding of what the medieval frontier meant for those who met it.