Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	1407
Title	Digitising Late Antique Letter Collections in the ERC CONNEC Project: A Round Table Discussion
Date/Time	Wednesday 6 July 2022: 19.00-20.00
Sponsor	CONNEC ('Connected Clerics: Building a Universal Church in the Late Antique West') Project, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Organiser	Victoria Leonard, Centre for Arts, Memory & Communities, Coventry University / Institute of Classical Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London
Moderator/Chair	David Natal Villazala, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Abstract	Since 2018, the 'Connected Clerics: Building a Universal Church in the Late Antique West' (CONNEC) Project, funded by the European Research Council, has worked to digitise letter exchanges in the collections of Augustine of Hippo and other 5th- and 6th-century authors. This round table considers the methodological choices and findings of the process, and its contribution to wider scholarship on letter collections, social network analysis, prosopography, and the formation of a universal church in Late Antiquity. The round table will pivot on small case studies from the database, exploring the challenges and results of defining letters and epistolary relationships. Panellists will respond through their own rich and unique experiences of constructing databases from Late Antique and medieval evidence. Participants include Becca Grose (University of Reading / University of Exeter / University of London), Alice Hicklin (University of Sheffield), Julia Hillner (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn), Conrad Leyser (University of Oxford), Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien), Alexander Watzinger (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien), and Robert Wiśniewski (Uniwersytet Warszawski).