The project
The Transformation of the Carolingian World
Plurality and Its Limits in Europe, 9th to 12th Century
The decades after the formation of the Carolingian empire around 800 and its territorial expansion to encompass most of Western Europe are correctly seen as a formative period for the emergence of a distinct European culture of Western Christendom. However, research in the last three decades has fundamentally changed the ways in which we perceive the Carolingian achievement. It is no longer a story of the restoration of imperial rule and Christian unity after the Dark Ages between the end of the Roman Empire and its renovation under Charlemagne. Instead, the Rise of the Carolingians is now seen as part of a longer history of cultural and social experimentation, of emulation and innovation, after the end of the Western Roman Empire, in which Carolingian politicians, rulers, bishops, theologians, intellectuals and lawyers built on the diverse social and political experiments of post-Roman societies and polities. The Carolingian reforms did not replace post-Roman multiplicity but integrated the inherited diversity in a new imperial framework.
News and events
News and Events
13 June 2017
Call for papers
Charlemagne’s Ghost: Legacies, Leftovers, and Legends of the Carolingian Empire.
44th Annual New England Medieval Conference
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Keynote Speaker: Simon MacLean, University of St. Andrews
“What Was Post-Carolingian about Post-Carolingian Europe?”
It is well known that the Frankish emperor Charlemagne (768-814) and his dynasty – the Carolingians – played an important role in the formation of Europe. Yet scholars still debate the long-term consequences of the collapse of the Carolingian empire in 888 and the diverse ways in which Charlemagne’s family shaped subsequent medieval civilization. This conference invites medievalists of all disciplines and specializations to investigate the legacies, leftovers, and legends of the Carolingian empire in the central and later Middle Ages. We welcome papers that consider a wide array of Carolingian legacies in the realms of kingship and political culture, literature and art, manuscripts and material artifacts, the Church and monasticism, as well as Europe’s relations with the wider world. We urge participants to reflect on the ways in which later medieval rulers, writers, artists, and communities remembered Charlemagne and the Frankish empire and adapted Carolingian inheritances to fit new circumstances. In short, this conference will explore the ways in which Charlemagne’s ghost haunted the medieval world.
Please send an abstract of 250 words and a CV to Eric Goldberg (egoldber@mit.edu) via email attachment. On your abstract provide your name, institution, the title of your proposal, and email address. Abstracts are due July 1, 2017.
8 December 2016
TCW at Leeds IMC 2017
The Transformation of the Carolingian World-Network will sponsor four sessions at the upcoming Leeds International Medieval Congress (3-6 July 2017). See the IMC Leeds website for paper titles and participants:
TCW Session I
TCW Session II
TCW Session III
TCW Session IV
7 December 2016
Upcoming conference: using and not using the past
Upcoming conference: legitimacy, lordship, and government
14 November 2016
Related project: ‘After Empire’
The related project ‘After Empire: Using and not using the past in the crisis of the Carolingian world, c. 900-c. 1050’ has started in September 2016. The project is funded through HERA, and is run as a joint effort by the Freie Universität Berlin, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Exeter, the University of St. Andrews, and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. For further information see the project’s page at the HERA-website.
network
network: Advisory Board
Stuart Airlie
School of Humanities, University of Glasgow
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Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak
Department of History
New York University (NYU)
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Geneviève Bührer-Thierry
Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris LAMOP
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
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Jennifer Davis
Faculty of History
Catholic University of America
Philippe Depreux
Max Diesenberger
Institut für Mittelalterforschung
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien
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Stefan Esders
Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut
Freie Universität Berlin
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Patrick Geary
School of Historical Studies
Institute for Advanced Study Princeton
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Eric J. Goldberg
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge-Mass.
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Maria Cristina La Rocca
Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche e dell’Antichità (DISSGeA)
Università degli Studi di Padova
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Conrad Leyser
Faculty of History
Worcester College, University of Oxford
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Steffen Patzold
Philosophische Fakultät, Fachbereich Geschichtswissenschaft, Seminar für mittelalterliche Geschichte
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
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Walter Pohl
Institut für Mittelalterforschung
Österreichische Akademie des Wissenschaften Wien
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Helmut Reimitz
Department of History
Princeton University
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Bernd Schneidmüller
Historisches Seminar
Universität Heidelberg
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Contact
Contact
Max Diesenberger
Institut für Mittelalterforschung
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien
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Richard Corradini
Institut für Mittelalterforschung
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien
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