We are launching a call for papers for 'The Carolingian frontier and its neighbours', a three-day conference to be held at the University of Cambridge, 4 - 6 July 2014.

Argument

While recent scholarship has done much to illuminate early medieval frontiers, the relationship between the Carolingian frontier and its neighbouring societies has yet to be the focus of sustained, comparative discussion. This conference aims to initiate a dialogue between scholars of the Carolingian frontier and those of the societies it bordered, and in so doing to reach a better understanding of the nature and extent of contacts in frontier regions and the various manners in which these contacts – not to mention frontier regions themselves – were conceptualized. Moreover, it will explore the interplay between various types of contact – whether military, political, economic, social, or religious – and the various ways in which these contacts could underpin, or undermine, existing relationships, both between the local societies themselves and between political centres.

By bringing together an international group of established and postgraduate scholars whose work lies both inside and outside the Carolingian empire, this conference seeks not only to open up comparative perspectives, but also to place the Carolingian empire within its global historical context.

Main themes

Topics may include, but are not limited to: cross-border socio-political influence; religious contacts and ideological exchange; trade and material culture; the influence of political centres at the frontier; frontier fortifications; and local and central conceptualizations of frontiers within the period c. 750 – c. 950.

Participants are also welcome to consider different Carolingian frontiers in comparative perspective and the role of modern scholarship in the ‘creation’ of the Carolingian frontier.

Confirmed speakers for this conference include Dr. Caroline Brett (Cambridge), Professor Wojciech Fałkowski (Warsaw), Professor Joachim Henning (Frankfurt), Dr. Jonathan Jarrett (Birmingham), Professor Eduardo Manzano Moreno (Madrid), and Dr. Ivo Štefan (Prague). Alongside invited papers, proposals are welcomed from postgraduate and postdoctoral students whose work focuses on the Carolingian frontier, and particularly from scholars of the societies which the Carolingians bordered.

This conference will take place on the 4 - 6 July, 2014, at the University of Cambridge.

Submission guidelines

Interested parties should send a 350 word abstract for a twenty-minute paper to thecarolingianfrontier@gmail.com.

The deadline for proposals is 11 April 2014.

This conference is generously supported by the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund and by the Society for the Study of French History.

Organisers

• Ingrid Rembold Cambridge University
• Fraser McNair Cambridge University
• Samuel Ottewill-Soulsby Cambridge University