Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	1021
Title	Frontiers and Crossroads in Italy, I: Elements and Concepts
Date/Time	Wednesday 6 July 2022: 09.00-10.30
Sponsor	Italy in Late Antiquity & the Early Middle Ages (ILAEMA), Amsterdam University Press
Organiser	Francesca Dell'Acqua, Dipartimento di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale (DISPAC), Università degli Studi di Salerno
Moderator/Chair	Edoardo Manarini, Dipartimento di Studi Storici, Università degli Studi di Torino
Paper 1021-a	Environmental Boundaries of Italy (Language: English) Edward Schoolman, Department of History, University of Nevada, Reno Index Terms: Archaeology - General; Economics - General; Geography and Settlement Studies; Historiography - Medieval
Paper 1021-b	Off the Beaten Track: Spaces, Boundaries and Places in the Edictum Rothari (Language: English) Christopher Heath, School of Humanities & Heritage, University of Lincoln Index Terms: Economics - Rural; Law; Social History
Paper 1021-c	When Is a Border No Longer a Border?: The Changing Relations of the Exarchate of Ravenna with Its Neighbours in the Late 9th - Early 10th Centuries (Language: English) Thomas Brown, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh Index Terms: Byzantine Studies; Hagiography; Historiography - Medieval; Mentalities
Abstract	This session is the first of a strand, dealing with the normative and narrative frameworks of frontiers in the Italian peninsula. First, Edward Schoolman will give an overview of new research on the paleo-ecological history of early medieval Italy through an analysis of written sources and the records of fossil pollen extracted from the sediment of bodies of water. He will illustrate, how from both human and natural archives, it becomes clear that there were stark differences in medieval landscapes and how they were managed. Secondly, Christopher Heath will consider spatial responses and impulses in the 7th-century Edictum Rothari. In analysing the legal titles that deal with spaces, boundaries and places both the conceptual and perceptual foundations of Lombard law may be identified. Finally, Tom Brown takes up the ongoing perceptual boundary that operated in the former Exarchate once the Byzantine Empire had ceased to rule in north-central Italy and the persistence of a frontier mentality.