Call for Papers – Vassals and Lords. Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Western Mediterranean

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

CALL FOR PAPERS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
VASSALS AND LORDS. CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, AND JEWS
IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN (13TH-15TH CENTURIES)

Madrid, October 26-28, 2026
Faculty of Geography and History, UNED.

Medieval history has been traditionally dominated by a monarchical and State-centric perspective. Yet the decentralized nature of medieval power demands a broader analytical framework that goes beyond the dichotomy between monarchy and nobility. This conference invites scholars to examine the intermediate tiers of authority −the complex and often negotiated relationships between lords and their vassals of different religions− in the late medieval western Mediterranean.

We welcome proposals from different disciplines (political history, history of art, literary criticism, cultural studies, diplomatics, archaeology, and others) that explore the dynamics of seigneurial power across the Iberian kingdoms −Portugal, Castile, Navarre, the Crown of Aragon and its Mediterranean territories (including those in Italy and beyond). Despite regional variations in jurisdiction and lordship, these areas share structural features that enable meaningful comparison. The conference will focus on the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, a period in which seigneurial systems reached full maturity and produced diverse forms of authority that was exercised over Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations. The event moves beyond traditional narratives of power to foreground, through multidisciplinary approaches, the diverse lived realities of vassalage and lordship in the late medieval Mediterranean.

Submission Deadline: 30 June, 2026

For more information:
https://mutis.hypotheses.org/vassals-and-lords-conference

Versión española:
https://mutis.hypotheses.org/congreso-vasallos-y-senores

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Call for Papers – “Rethinking Innocent IV and the Crusades: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

Call for Papers

“Rethinking Innocent IV and the Crusades: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry”
London, 24-26 September 2026.
Mode: Hybrid form, both in Person and Online

Overview of the Event

“Rethinking Innocent IV and the Crusades” seeks to reassess the pontificate of Innocent IV (1243–1254) through a sustained examination of his engagement with the crusading movement. Long overshadowed by the more extensively studied pontificates of his predecessors, Innocent IV nonetheless presided over a period of profound transformation in the ideology, organisation, and geographical scope of crusading. His pontificate coincided with simultaneous crises and initiatives across Europe and the Mediterranean world: from the Mongol advance in the East to the consolidation of crusading activity in the Baltic, and from renewed campaigns in the Holy Land to complex negotiations with secular rulers. Far from constituting a merely transitional phase or a simple continuation of earlier policies, Innocent IV’s pontificate offers a unique vantage point from which to examine the evolving nature of papal authority, particularly in light of the diversification of crusading theatres and the reconfiguration of legal, political, and diplomatic relationships in the dynamic context of the mid-thirteenth century.

By bringing together leading international experts from a range of disciplines – including history, theology, canon law, political thought, manuscript studies, and diplomatic history – and early-career researchers, the conference aims to illuminate the breadth and complexity of Innocent IV’s involvement in crusading enterprises from a plurality of perspectives and methodological approaches. Topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to: responses to the Mongol advance and their implications for Latin Christendom; the organisation and financing of crusades in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land; the development of papal legal thought concerning infidels and jurisdiction; the role of legates and papal agents; and the interaction between papal policy and regional political dynamics in Europe and the Near East.

Through this multidisciplinary investigation, the conference also seeks to situate Innocent IV’s pontificate within broader historiographical debates on the transformation of crusading ideology, the expansion of papal jurisdiction through the negotium crucis, and the shifting boundaries of Christian and non-Christian relations in the thirteenth century. By fostering dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, the event aims to generate new methodological perspectives and to promote a more nuanced understanding of a pivotal yet comparatively understudied moment in the history of the medieval papacy and the crusades.

Conference Organisers

  • Collette Firestone (PhD student in History at Royal Holloway University)
  • Alessandro Scalone (PhD student in History at Royal Holloway University of London/Visiting Fellow at Institute of Historical Research in London)

Submission of Abstracts

We are pleased to invite proposals for 20-minute papers exploring all aspects of the relationship between the pontificate of Innocent IV and the crusading movement. We particularly welcome contributions that adopt interdisciplinary approaches, including (but not limited to) history, legal history, theology, manuscript studies, political thought and institutional history. Particular attention will be moreover giving the proposals concerning the history of heresy and heretical communities during Innocent’s pontificate, the relationship with the Mendicant Orders, with the Mongol World, the promotion and the business of the cross in Italy.

Please submit:

  • A title and abstract (c.300 words)
  • A brief academic biography

Submissions should be sent to:

Deadline: 8 June 2026

Programme
The programme will be available after selection of contributions based on the call for papers.

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2026-2027 Visiting Research Fellowships at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) is pleased to announce that the call for applications for its 2026-2027 Visiting Research Fellowship program is now open. Guided by the vision of its founders, Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, SIMS aims to bring manuscript culture, modern technology, and people together to provide access to and understanding of our shared intellectual heritage. Part of the Penn Libraries, SIMS oversees an extensive collection of premodern manuscripts from around the world, with a special focus on the history of philosophy and science, and creates open-access digital content to support the study of its collections.

SIMS-Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures Collaborative Fellowship

In addition to our usual Visiting Research Fellowships (see below for details), we are delighted to announce a new collaborative fellowship opportunity with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg. The SIMS-CSMC Fellowship will allow the recipient to take advantage of the expertise and manuscript resources at Penn Libraries and CSMC’s expertise in the Humanities, material analysis and/or Computer Science for manuscript research. The one-month SIMS fellowship comes with a stipend of $5000 and must take place before the CSMC fellowship. The SIMS fellowship can be scheduled anytime from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. The CSMC fellowship offers a monthly stipend of between $2590–$4463 (depending on the number of years after the PhD) plus Hamburg-return travel costs for one to three months and can be scheduled any time from January 1, 2027, to December 31, 2027.

For more information about the SIMS-CSMC Collaborative Fellowship and to apply, visit this website. Applications are due Friday, May 1, 2026.

Visiting Research Fellowships

The Visiting Research Fellowship program offers $5000 to spend 1 month (minimum of 4 work weeks) at SIMS between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027. Up to 3 fellowships will be awarded. SIMS continues partnering with the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) to offer SIMS Visiting Research Fellows the opportunity to apply to the ATBL for a further $2,500 to support research on the same project at the British Library. The ATBL fellowship will be awarded in the following year. If a SIMS fellowship is awarded, then the ATBL will reach out to the applicant and request that they apply.

For more information about the Visiting Research Fellowships and to apply, visit this website. Applications are due Friday, May 1, 2026.

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Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on February 24, 2026 by Chris

Managing Editor of SMART :

  • Approximately one-third to one-half of the salary for the position involving the editorship: soliciting and receiving papers and books for review; mailing out books for review to readers; mailing potential submissions to readers for review, receiving comments and sharing with authors (including back and forth correspondence relative to readers’ comments for changes to submissions); receiving completed book reviews; compiling, editing, and formatting each issue with articles and book reviews; sending final copy of each issue to the press; receiving all bound copies of the journal; mailing out bound issues to subscribers (paid by the university).
  • All mailing costs (solicitation mailings for subscriptions [$400], mailing copies of the journal to subscribers [$900], and mailing books sent out for review [$300]) and all supplies (paper, envelopes, toner cartridges, misc. office materials, etc. [$500]) (paid by the university).
  • The small SMART account that has accumulated from subscriptions over many years now totals approximately $23,000, which pays for the publication of two issues of the journal per year, or about $3,500-$4,000 (depending on the size of the issue), which is partly offset by monies from subscriptions which now total around 50, most of which are universities (or about $1,800 per year) (paid from the SMART account).
  • Travel to Kalamazoo to attend the Congress each year (sometimes paid by the university and at other times paid by the SMART account). For the past few years, I have not been traveling to the conference but rather soliciting papers using information from the conference program and sending invitation letters to presenters.

The person taking over  will also be responsible for housing all back issues of SMART,  a database of subscribers and readers, files of subscriptions and some previous correspondence, and the SMART financial account.

For more information about this opportunity, please contact Kristie Bixby, the current Managing Editor of Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (SMART), at kristie.bixby@wichita.edu.

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Opportunity for Graduate Students and ECRs: GIS Basics for Byzantinists Workshop Series

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Chris

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Byzantine Studies Association of North America are pleased to offer a a GIS basics workshop series for graduate students and early career researchers in collaboration with Becky Seifried of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

GIS Basics for Byzantinists Workshop Series | Becky Seifried (University of Massachusetts Amherst) | Zoom | March 13 and March 20, 2026

The GIS Basics for Byzantinists workshop series will provide an introduction to the core concepts of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through participatory sessions geared towards map creation and design. Using QGIS, a free and open-source GIS desktop software package, participants will learn how to create new research data and then transform it into an effective digital or static final map. The sessions are independent, but attending both is recommended to get the most out of the series. Participants are invited to use their own research project or idea as a basis for exploring the tool. Demo data will also be provided if needed. This workshop series is intended for those who have very little or no experience with GIS.

Each workshop is limited to 15 participants. Students enrolled in graduate programs in North America and early career researchers working in North America will be given priority. Registration is first come, first served.

Registration closes March 4, 2026.

To read a full description of the workshop series and register your interest, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/gis-basics-for-byzantinists.

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

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Online Lecture: Spindle Whorls and Women’s Work: Reframing Middle Byzantine Lives in the Athenian Agora

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Chris

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the final lecture in our 2025–2026 lecture series.

Spindle Whorls and Women’s Work: Reframing Middle Byzantine Lives in the Athenian Agora
Fotini Kondyli, University of Virginia
March 4, 2026 | 12:00–1:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time, UTC -5)| | Zoom

Over 150 Middle Byzantine spindle whorls in bone and steatite have been uncovered in the Athenian Agora Excavations, found in domestic and work spaces as well as in burials. In this lecture, I move these objects out of the artifact catalogues where they often linger and let them speak, telling the stories of the women who used them and the non-elite lives they illuminate.

By tracing the “biographies” of these tools—their birth (materials, making, design), working life (use, skill, transmission), and economic movement (exchange, display, disposal)—we can reconstruct rhythms of women’s labor and situate spinning within the urban economy of Byzantine Athens. Highly decorated surfaces, combining polished planes with incised grooves and circles, reveal a tactile aesthetic meant to be felt as much as seen. These designs, often associated with sacred or protective motifs, suggest that spindle whorls were not merely functional but active participants in religious experience and domestic protection. Decoration also connects these objects to a wider world: parallels with Islamic spindle whorls from the 9th–10th-century point to cultural exchange through textiles and luxury goods, and their appropriation for aesthetic and apotropaic purposes in Byzantine contexts.

Portable and publicly performed, spinning transformed these tools into communication objects, signaling skill, status, and adherence to social norms, while transmitting tacit knowledge across generations. Thinking through these encounters, this lecture reframes spinning as a socially and religiously meaningful, economically consequential performance at the heart of Middle Byzantine urban life.

Fotini Kondyli is Associate Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the University of Virginia. She researches spatial practices, community-building processes, the material culture of Byzantine non-elites, and cultural, economic, and political networks in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Byzantine period (13th-15th centuries).

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/spindle-whorls-and-womens-work

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

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Online Lecture: The Frankish Kingdom and the Eastern Empire: Rethinking Their Interconnections from a Medieval Perspective

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Chris

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the 2025–2026 edition of its annual lecture with the Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

The Frankish Kingdom and the Eastern Empire: Rethinking Their Interconnections from a Medieval Perspective
Laury Sarti, University of Bonn
February 27, 2026 | 12:00–1:30 pm (EST, UTC -5) | Zoom

How did the Byzantines perceive the Franks since the end of Antiquity, and to what extent did they recognise Frankish imperial claims at the time of Charlemagne? This lecture reassesses the sources to challenge the traditional view of general Byzantine superiority, focusing on contemporary perspectives. It examines the relationship and connections between the Franks and the empire from the Merovingian period, and how these relations evolved over time. It does so by employing three approaches: the study of connectivity, exploring interactions and infrastructures; the study of networking, tracing the processes and outcomes of these interactions; and entanglement, analysing intersecting socio-political factors. The evidence shows that Charlemagne’s recognition in 812 followed standard imperial protocols, that the dual imperial order remained conceptually viable, and that the Franks retained ties to imperial structures while gradually asserting autonomy. Elite-level networks—embassies, marriage proposals, and Greek learning—sustained a limited but enduring imperial connection, which only weakened by the Ottonian period.

Laury Sarti is Heisenberg Professor in the Department of History at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on war as a factor of social change after the end of the Roman Empire, the legacy of Rome in the early medieval West, and physical mobility until the Late Middle Ages.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/the-frankish-kingdom-and-the-eastern-empire

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

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Summer School on the languages of the Christian East in Rome

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Chris

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are delighted to announce the third edition of the Summer School on the Languages of the Christian East, organised by Syriaca – The Italian Association for Syriac Studies and the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome.

The Summer School will be held, as usual, in the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome, from July 6th to July 17th, 2026. Just like previous editions, the School will offer a variety of language classes, which will take place in the morning, as well as many seminars on literature and culture in the afternoon. Participants will receive a certificate of 6 ECTS at the end of the two weeks (with 90% of attendance achieved).

This year, we have expanded our teaching offer, which now amounts to 12 courses, here listed with their instructors:

Arabic 1: Francesca Cananiello (Università di Firenze)
Arabic 2: Martino Masolo (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano)
Armenian 1: Emilio Bonfiglio (Hamburg Universität)
Armenian 2: Sara Scarpellini (Università di Firenze)
Ethiopian 1: Alessandro Bausi (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Georgian 1: Alexey Muraviev (Lomonosov Moscow State University)
Hebrew 1: Anna Giaconia (Universiteit Gent)
Hebrew 2: Isabella Maurizio (Sorbonne)
Syriac 1: Giorgia Nicosia (Universiteit Gent)
Syriac 2: Marco Pavan (Roma Tre / UPS)
Vernacular Greek: Ugo Mondini (University of Oxford)

Unsure of which language to pick, or simply curious to know what will be learned in each course? Take a look at the brief videos with info about our courses and their teachers:  https://www.syriacastudisiriaci.it/scuola-estiva/

Participants will be able to attend only one language course, but are strongly encouraged to let us know, upon registration, whether they would be interested in attending any other course that we offer. Participants will be provided with the materials and tools that will be necessary for their morning classes and afternoon seminars. Though in-person participation is highly recommended, the possibility of attending the Summer School online will be provided upon specific request. The School will be held in Italian, but all language teachers are available to switch to English if requested.

Registrations are now open! Participants will enjoy the reduced fee for early birds (420 € in person, 520€ online) until 15/03. If you register between 15/03 and 01/05, there will be no reduction (480 € in person, 580 € online). Registrations close on the 1st of May 2026. A limited number of on-campus ensuite rooms are available for Summer School participants, on a first come first served basis. Participants will be informed of the accommodation pricing based on their requests.

To register, please email us at summerschoolSyriacaUPS@gmail.com, stating which language course you wish to attend (+ a backup option), and attaching a brief description of your academic background and interests (5-10 lines). Do not forget to add whether you need on-campus accommodation for the Summer School.

More info on the website: https://www.syriacastudisiriaci.it/scuola-estiva/

Do not hesitate to reach out to us at summerschoolSyriacaUPS@gmail.com; we hope to see many of you in Rome this summer!

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Call for Papers – Threads of Knowledge in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Chris

The 29th Biennial Conference of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program of Barnard College  

Threads of Knowledge: Weaving and the Life of Textiles in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Barnard College, New York City

December 5, 2026 

The 29th Biennial Conference of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program of Barnard College. For centuries, textiles clothed bodies and books, veiled relics, marked liturgical and political boundaries, and insulated and adorned walls. Their portability and preciousness made them ideal agents of exchange. They carried forms, materials, and techniques across vast regions and cultures. It is through textiles, perhaps more than any other artistic medium, that the global interconnectedness of this historical period comes into view. At the same time, their manufacture could remain insistently local and idiosyncratic, dependent as it was—before industrustrialization—on individual touch and rhythm. Textiles could be a luxury or a thing of everyday life, and medieval and Renaissance writers exploited the double entendre of the Latin textus—both a woven and written thing—in their expositions on divinity and knowledge. Jerome characterized the Evangelists as those who “wove the truth of history” (historiae texere veritatem), a metaphor Erasmus, among others, revived in describing eloquence as a woven fabric of words. In Arabic, al-Jāḥiẓ described poetry as “a kind of weaving (ḍarb min al-nasj).”

This one-day conference invites scholars from across disciplines (archaeology, art history and conservation, history, literary studies, religion, history of science, legal history) to explore how textiles, and the metaphors they inspired, shaped medieval and Renaissance life. Topics could include but are not limited to the following: production and labor; global trade and circulation; technical knowledge and transmission; gendered and domestic craft practices; liturgical and ceremonial textiles; clothing and identity; textiles as diplomatic or political gifts; conservation and material analysis; weaving and intertextuality; and the role of textiles in shaping networks and communities.

The conference will be held Saturday, December 5, 2026 on the Barnard College campus in New York City. Tours of local collections for conference participants may take place the preceding day, Friday, December 4.

Plenary Speakers:
Timothy McCall, Villanova University
Sharon Farmer, University of California-Santa Barbara

PLEASE NOTE: The conference will be in person. While we will give preference to submissions for papers held in person, we also invite proposals from scholars who are only able to deliver papers remotely on Zoom.

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words and a 2-page CV to Greg Bryda (gbryda@barnard.edu)

Submission Deadline: May 1, 2026

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Early Registration for the Annual Meeting Ends Feb. 14th

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Chris

101st Annual Meeting of the
Medieval Academy of America:

Registration is open!

Rates will increase by $30 on Saturday, 14 February.
Register by Saturday, 14 February to avoid the late fee!

Online registration for MAA 2026 will close on Tuesday, 10 March 2026.

Registration is now open for the 101st Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America. The Meeting will take place on March 19–21, 2026 on the campuses of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College, and will also include events at Mt. Holyoke College and Smith College. Hosted by the Five College Consortium, the theme of the meeting is “Consortiums and Confluences.” The program will bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds addressing the medieval world and critical topics in Medieval Studies. Our plenary lectures will be given by Elly Truitt (Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania), Peggy McCracken (President of the Medieval Academy of America and Professor of French, Women’s Studies, and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan), and Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco (Augustus R. Street Professor of Spanish & Portuguese and Comparative Literature at Yale University). We are excited to welcome you to Amherst, Massachusetts, and its environs, and look forward to meeting you, learning from you, and celebrating our shared commitment to Medieval Studies.

In addition, please note that the deadline to secure a discounted hotel rate is rapidly approaching. For the Inn on Boltwood, (in downtown Amherst) the cut-off was February 4.  For most of the others (Hotel UMass, Courtyard by Marriott, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Comfort Inn and Suites, Hampton by Hilton), it is February 18.

-Hotels in bold are on the shuttle route.

-The Hotel UMass is on-site so not part of shuttle service.

Here is the link to our travel page, which in turn has links to these hotels along with their discount codes:

https://maa2026.wordpress.amherst.edu/home/travel-logistics/travel-navigation/

Click here for more information and to register!

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