News

There was a time, not so long ago, when Medieval Studies constituted a major pillar for the understanding of the history of human civilization. The Middle Ages bridge the gap between ancient culture and Modernity; it is the period during which the Greek and Roman heritage was transformed into European and Christian values and found expression in new and different ways in music, art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and theology – fields, which testify to the cultural evolution of humanity. For this reason, Medieval Studies had a strong and uncontested position in the curricula of many institutions of higher education, especially in the Western world.

Today, things are different. While the medieval contribution to the project of humanity remains beyond doubt, the challenges facing those interested in history have definitively changed. In a globalizing world, the emergence of the universities, gothic architecture, polyphony, and urban culture, can no longer be studied in isolation. Their significance must be assessed against the background of developments elsewhere in the world, for instance, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Today, what does the medieval past mean for a global and culturally diverse future?

Medieval Studies have always excelled by their vigorous scholarly methods and their inventiveness: it is within this realm that new methods of critical text editing were developed and became the standard across all the humanities; medievalists were among the first to seize the opportunities and chances offered by the digitization of texts; interdisciplinary research is the rule rather than the exception. With these features, Medieval Studies are well equipped to develop convincing answers  to the challenges of the future in front of them. Distinguished by a vast regional diversity as well as global interaction and exchange, the Middle Ages both question and inspire our contemporary understanding as citizens of a globalizing world, a promising challenge calling for new ideas and
powerful institutions suited to put the ‘European’ Middle Ages into relation with human achievements elsewhere on the globe.

Currently, different replies to these new challenges are under discussion, each with its own potentials and risks: global medievalism, digital humanities, comparative history, rethinking the cultural narrative. To present and debate these approaches and to exchange views about successful perspectives of Medieval Studies, the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Etudes Médiévales (FIDEM) devotes its 6^th European Congress of Medieval Studies to the topic of “Past and Future: Medieval Studies Today”.

 

09.00 Sessions Paleography and Codicology • Marc

Smith (Paris)

Open Scholasticism: Networks of
Thought in the Digital Age • Hans Cools
(Basel), Gabriel Müller (Basel), Roberta
Padlina (Basel), Ueli Zahnd (Basel)

Grammar and Literature • Isabela
Stoian (Bucharest, Fribourg),
Constantin Teleanu (Paris), Monica
Oanca (Bucharest)

6

10.30 Pause
11.00 Sessions

12.30 Lunch (own arrangements)

13.30 Sessions

15.00 Pause

Chances and Opportunities: Medieval
Texts and Modern Cultural Paradigms •
Seraina Plotke (Basel)

Medieval Musicology at the Challenge
of Globalization: Some Ideas to Survive
• Francesco Zimei (Teramo)

Guides to Well‐being in the Long
Fifteenth Century • Sabrina Corbellini
(Groningen), Catrien Santing
(Groningen), Marilyn Nicoud (Avignon),
Marina Gazzini (Parma)

The Arborescent Prevalence and the
Growth of Knowledge: Studying the
Medieval Tree Structures in a
Contemporary Way • José Higuera
Rubio (Porto), Sergi Sancho Fibla (Aix‐
en‐Provence), Antoine Paris (Paris),
Naïs Virenque (Tours)

History • Julia Aguilar Miquel
(Madrid), Vytautas Volungevičius
(Vilnius), Luca Polidoro (Florence,
Siena)

Databases • Paul Tombeur
(Turnhout), Patricia Cañizares Ferriz
(Madrid), Atat Ayman
(Braunschweig)

15.30 Excursion to the Basel University Library and the Digital Humanities Lab (all participants)
18.00 Second Plenary Lecture The Future of Medieval Studies: A Chinese Historian’s Perspective • Hilde de Weerdt (Leiden)
19.30 Dinner (own arrangements)

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Tuesday 04.09.2018

Discussion Sessions Special Sessions Paper Sessions

09.00 Sessions

10.30 Pause
11.00 Sessions

12.30 Lunch (own arrangements)

De la page numérisée aux sens révélés:
Vers une prise en charge automatique
du corpus “Bible Historiale” • Xavier‐
Laurent Salvador (Paris)

Medieval Studies Today and
Tomorrow: Interdisciplinarity as a
Cross‐Cultural Approach. The Example
of the Upper Rhine Region • Isabel
Iribarren (Stasbourg)

Questions on the Vademecum of the
Count of Haro (c. 1399‐1470) • María‐
José Muñoz (Madrid), Antonio
Espigares (Madrid), Beatriz Fernández
de la Cuesta (Madrid), Montserrat
Jiménez (Madrid)

Scotist Ideas Shaping Latin American
Scholasticism: Contingency and Will in
Mission and Philosophical Theology •
Roberto Hofmeister Pich (Porto Alegre),
Nicolás Martínez Bejarano (Santa Fe de
Bogotá), Guido José Rey Alt (Cologne)

Digital Humanities • Maria Amélia
Álvaro de Campos (Coimbra,
Évora), Marta Pavon Ramirez
(Rome), Mercè Puig Rodríguez‐
Escalona (Barcelona)

Early Medieval Theology • Florin
Crismareanu (Iași), Mihai Grigoraş
(Bucharest), Florina Rodica Hariga
(Iași)

8

13.30 Sessions

15.00 Pause

Old Norse Studies 2.0 ‐ Small Subjects
in a Digital World • Lena Rohrbach
(Basel)

Failing Paradigms or how Early
Modern Concepts of Art Shaped the
Discourse on Medieval Art • Barbara
Schellewald (Basel), Heidrun Feldmann
(Basel), Henriette Hofmann (Basel)

Late Medieval Theology • Irene
Villarroel Fernández (Madrid),
Luciano Micali (Freiburg), Cristian
Moisuc (Iași)

15.15 General Assembly (all participants, only FIDEM members can vote)
Agenda
1. FIDEM Presidential Report
2. FIDEM Activities Report
3. Presentation and Election of Candidates for the FIDEM Board
4. Questions from Members
18.15 Third Plenary Lecture How a Mirror of Princes became a Handbook of Popular Philosophy and Practical Ethics • Beatrice Gründler (Berlin)
19.15 Dinner Reception (all participants)

9

Wednesday 05.09.2018

Discussion Sessions Paper Sessions Paper Sessions

09.00 Sessions

10.30 Pause

Thinking Big Under Short Term
Conditions. The Future of Medieval
Institutes • Andreas Speer (Cologne)

Medieval Philosophy • Elisa Coda
(Pisa), Silvia Negri (Freiburg), Nadia
Bray (Lecce)

Interpreting the Middle Ages •
Christoph Kann (Düsseldorf), Enrique
Corti (Buenos Aires)

11.00 Table Ronde • Past and Future. Medieval Studies Today
12.15 Closure
12.30 Lunch (own arrangements)
13.30 Departure

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Titles of Presentations in Special Sessions

Open Scholasticism: Networks of Thought in the Digital Age (Monday, 09.00)
Hans Cools (Basel)
Semantic Web Technologies in Medieval Studies
Gabriel Müller (Basel)
Making it Work: the Challenges of Publishing Open Scholastic Data
Roberta Padlina (Basel)
Semantic Text Annotation with the Standoff Approach
Ueli Zahnd (Basel)
Scholasticism and the Text‐as‐Network Paradigm
Guides to Well‐being in the Long Fifteenth Century (Monday, 11.00)
Sabrina Corbellini (Groningen) and Catrien Santing (Groningen)
The Study of Late Medieval Well‐Being and the Relevance of Medieval Studies Today
Marilyn Nicoud (Avignon)
Les regimes de santé médiévaux: de manuels d’auto‐contrainte ou d’éducation à la santé?
Marina Gazzini (Parma)
Welfare before Welfare. Italian Confraternities and Guilds as Forms of Insurance

11

The Arborescent Prevalence and the Growth of Knowledge: Studying the Medieval Tree Structures in a Contemporary Way (Monday 13.30)
José Higuera Rubio (Porto)
The Epistemological Accomplishments of Tree Representations: Middle Ages and Beyond
Sergi Sancho Fibla (Aix‐en‐Provence)
Trees as Organizational Structures in Mystical Literature from the 13th and 14th Centuries
Antoine Paris (Paris) and Naïs Virenque (Tours)
Studying Medieval Arboreal Frameworks Today. Terminology, Iconology and Networks
Questions on the Vademecum of the Count of Haro (c. 1399‐1470) (Tuesday 09.00)
María‐José Muñoz (Madrid)
Las sentencias preferidas por diversos lectores del Vademecum (ms. BNE 9513)
Antonio Espigares (Madrid)
San Agustín en el Vademecum del Conde de Haro
Beatriz Fernández de la Cuesta (Madrid)
Las sentencias preferidas por el conde de Haro en el ms. BNE 9522
Montserrat Jiménez (Madrid)
La Carta de Léntulo al senado de Roma en el Vademecum
Scotist Ideas Shaping Latin American Scholasticism: Contingency and Will in Mission and Philosophical Theology (Tuesday 11.00)
Roberto Hofmeister Pich (Porto Alegre)
Coercion and the Limits of Voluntariness: The Scotist Philosophical Background of Baptism Practices by Franciscan Missionaries in 16th‐17th Century Latin America

12

Nicolás Martínez Bejarano (Santa Fe de Bogotá)
Baptism and Social Organization in The Wonders of Nature of Fray Juan de Santa Gertrudis
Guido José Rey Alt (Cologne)
Determinate Truth and Contingency in Alfonso Briceño’s Controversiae (1639)
Failing paradigms or how early modern concepts of art shaped the discourse on medieval art (Tuesday 13.30)
Barbara Schellewald (Basel)
Excluding Byzantium or Shared History?
Heidrun Feldmann (Basel)
Batty Langley’s “Gothic Orders”
Henriette Hofmann (Basel)
The Framing of the Hildesheim Bronze Doors or How Bernward ‘Misunderstood’ Antiquity

2018 FIDEM Congress: Past and Future: Medieval Studies Today – 6th European Congress of Medieval Studies