Liturgies are scenic reconstructions of narratives. The questions raised at this conference is how such sacred myths influenced the historiography in Christian centers throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world.
Ritual and Historiography in the Middle Ages
University of Münster; Germany
31.03.2016 – 02.05.2017
The past few decades, and especially the past few years, have seen a significant rise in scholarship on medieval Christian liturgy. No longer the esoteric domain of liturgists alone, the rites of the church are increasingly treated by scholars from a broad range of disciplines—including history, religion, literature, anthropology, art history, musicology, and theology—as an indispensable source for the study of medieval society and culture. This conference aims to contribute to the growing discourse by bringing together an international group of scholars to discuss the connection between religious rituals and the writing of history in medieval Europe, Byzantium, the Near East and beyond.
Keynote Speaker will be Rosamund McKitterick and Eric Palazzo, Université de Poitiers
Call for Papers
Historiography in the Middle Ages was normally a clerical practice. From Aachen to Kiev to Constantinople, generations of bishops and monks wrote and rewrote, copied and recopied, the political and sacred histories of their respective communities. These same bishops and monks also devoted their lives to performing liturgical rites: day after day, morning, evening and night, they served and sang the holy rituals. Medieval clerics, in other words, spent their lives praying sacred narratives about ancient communities: the Israelites, Christ and the Apostles, the emperor Constantine and empress Helena, to name only a few. The question the conference will explore is how these services and sacred myths influenced the construction of history in Christian centers throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world.
Important Dates
01.08.2016: Deadline for submission of proposals
01.09.2016: Approval of proposals
01.03.2017 Final deadline for submission of papers
Convener:
Sean Griffin, Volkswagen Stiftung Visiting Fellow, Department of History, University of Münster
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Russian, Dartmouth Society of Fellows
Funding for the conference has been generously provided by the Volkswagen Stiftung and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Hotel accommodations and some meals will be provided. Limited travel funds may also be available for junior scholars.
FEATURED PHOTO:
Mass of Saint Gregory, Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Detail. Attributed to Petrus Nicolai Moraulus or Claeissens the elder. Source: Public Domain
READ MORE:
Medieval Concepts of the Past. Ritual, Memory, Historiography
Part of Publications of the German Historical Institute
Ed by Gerd Althoff, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, Johannes Fried, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt and Patrick J. Geary, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Cambridge University Press 2008
ISBN: 9780521060288