‘Charting Authority after Empire: Documentary Culture and Political Legitimacy in Post-Carolingian Europe’

6 pm GMT, Thursday 1 February 2024, Online

This is the booking page for Online attendance of the lecture with Professor Levi Roach.

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The lecture takes place in the Voysey Conference Room, Mary Ward House, 5-7 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SN Map

About the lecture

Research over the past three decades has transformed our understanding western Europe in the years between the late ninth and early eleventh centuries. It was in this period that recognizable kingdoms of France, Germany, England and (to an extent) Italy were born; it was also in this period that many of the dynasties which would shape the future of the European mainland were established. Above all, it was in these years that the Carolingian dynasty which had ruled much of western Europe since the mid-eighth century was decisively eclipsed.

But while elements of these transitions are now well understood, models of change continue to be constructed primarily within the context of national master narratives: the weak origins of France, the precocity of urban associations in Italy, the fateful experiments with empire in Germany. Truly comparative work, though growing in volume, continues to represent the exception. This is unfortunate, since many of the shifts observable clearly spanned what Heinrich Fichtenau memorably called ‘the sometime Carolingian Empire’ (das einstige Karolingerreich), a massive region encompassing France, Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Austria and Northern Italy.

In this lecture, Levi Roach uses the charters issued by rulers of these regions as a window into the processes whereby new dynasties and kingdoms established themselves on the basis of existing traditions. In doing so, he focuses on a remarkable set of shared changes in the layout and appearance in these documents, which reveal much about the nature and significance of these transitions.

Charting Authority after Empire: Lecture with Prof Levi Roach, Online

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