PROJECT CONFERENCE
Registration, Programme, and Abstracts
Image: Frères Limbourg, "Septembre", Les très riches heures du duc de Berry (Chantilly, Musée Condé, Ms 65, fol. 9v).[/caption]
Registration has closed as the conference has taken place. MALMECC invited those interested to email malmecc@humanities.ox.ac.uk with their affiliation (if applicable), and details of any access or dietary requirements. All were welcome, and there were many interesting discussions.
The programme and speaker abstracts are available to download below by clicking the links. For the most up to date information, contact malmecc@humanities.ox.ac.uk
MALMECC Conference - Abstracts
Synopsis
Late medieval European court cultures have traditionally been studied from a mono-disciplinary and national(ist) perspective. This has obscured much of the interplay of cultural performances that informed “courtly life”. Recent work by medievalists has routinely challenged this, but disciplinary boundaries remain strong. The MALMECC project therefore has been exploring late medieval court cultures and the role of sounds and music in courtly life across Europe in a transdisciplinary, team-based approach that brings together art history, general history, literary history, and music history. Team members explore the potential of transdisciplinary work by focusing on discrete subprojects within the chronological boundaries 1280-1450 linked to each other through shared research axes, e.g., the social condition of ecclesiastic(s at) courts, the transgenerational and transdynastic networks generated by genetic lineage and marriage, the performativity of courtly artefacts and physical as well as social spaces, and the social, linguistic and geographic mobility of court(ier)s.
Since the inception of the project, the MALMECC team have conducted an international project workshop dedicated to methodological innovation in late medieval studies (2017), and a series of international study days (2018-19), focussing on late medieval ecclesiastic courts, late medieval multilingualism and cultural exchanges across linguistic boundaries, and cardinals’ and papal households of Avignon as transcultural hubs. A fourth international study day probing the transnational qualities of courtly life in north-western Europe took place in March 2019 in Liège (Belgium).
In the project conference in September 2019, we united as many strands of court studies as possible and invited speakers from many disciplines engaged with the long fourteenth century (c. 1280-1450) in exploring phenomena of late medieval courtly life from a transdisciplinary angle.
Two additional workshops were convened in the wake of the conference to expand our explorations further. They were to take place in March (Prague, Czech Republic) and April (Meissen, Germany) 2020 in collaboration with international partners but had to be cancelled (Prague) or postponed (Meissen).
