scambi medievali - medieval exchanges in southern Italy

This year’s International Medieval Congress will host our final conference papers for the Leverhulme Trust-funded project. I will be organising a session on the construction of family relationships in Norman Europe in which my paper will highlight the importance of objects on the occasion of marriage in 12th-century southern Italy. Patricia Skinner will be participating again in the Medieval Italy strand of the congress giving a paper on the rhythms of trade in Amalfi. Full details to session abstracts are linked below.

Patricia Skinner: Seasonal Business Patterns: Solving the Amalfitan ‘Enigma’?  in:

Session 621: Cities in Medieval Italy and Italians in Medieval Cities, I: New Approaches to Old Problems in Local and Long-Distance Trade, 10 July, 11.15-12.45

Tehmina Goskar: A Bed, a Mattress and a Pillow Full of Feathers: Practical Provisions upon Marriage in 12th-Century Southern Italy (download paper abstract) in:

Session 1627: Nearest and Dearest: The Construction of Family Relationships in Norman Europe, 12 July, 11-15-12.45

I am in the middle of transferring the scambimedievali.org.uk research blog to its own wordpress blog. Most of this transfer is complete. There will be a flurry of new posts documenting our activity over the last year in the coming months.
Please note that the research blog will cease to be available at www.scambimedievali.org.uk in a few days time.

The free workshop, funded by our Leverhulme Trust project grant, Labels that Stick: early medieval peoples and objects and the problem of description has been finalised and details can be found below.

The workshop is hosted by the Centre for Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Date: 22 January 2007
Venue: Lecture Theatre C, Avenue Campus, University of Southampton. How to get here.

Full programme Continue reading ‘Workshop programme finalised’

On 22 January 2007, our research project will be hosting a free workshop for the Centre for Antiquity and the Middle Ages, University of Southampton on: ‘Labels that Stick: early medieval people and objects and the problem of description’ with keynote speaker, Professor Bonnie Effros (SUNY, Binghamton).

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPANTS Continue reading ‘Labels That Stick Workshop’

The Theoretical Archaeology Conference 2006 is shortly to be upon us. The session I have organised to debate a future for medieval material culture studies, across disciplines and professions, ‘The spade cannot lie: fresh perspectives on medieval material culture’ will take place on Satuday 16 December at 2pm in room Newman D. I am delighted with the response to the session, both from the speakers and chair who have contributed their papers and ideas, and those who wish to know more about the MMCCn (Medieval Material Culture Communication Network). The session is supported by the Centre for Antiquity and the Middle Ages, University of Southampton. Session details… Continue reading ‘Medieval Material Culture session at TAG 2006′

This year the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) is holding its annual conference in Exeter (X-TAG) on 15-17 December 2006. I am organising a session called ‘ ‘The spade cannot lie’ - fresh perspectives on medieval material culture’. The session abstract is reproduced below. Please email me if you would like to give a paper, participate in the discussion afterwards or are interested in the creation of a Medieval Material Culture Communication Network.

The deadline for paper proposals is 30 September 2006 (no more than 300 words). Continue reading ‘Call for Papers: The Spade Cannot Lie*’

A group of postgraduates from the Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Southampton (which includes the School of Humanities) has established a network for research into the Construction of Identity as it relates to our various disciplines. I have been involved in the early stages of this group and we have set up a community weblog on the academically based ‘elgg.net‘ site. As a group we aim to compare our various experiences of understanding how identities are constructed and what problems we have in common when trying examine issues of identity in our fields of study. The community weblog will be on trial during the month of June and then formally launched to the world. The second most immediate aim is to compile a cross-disciplinary bibliography of titles we have used in our various fields and make this available via our community weblog. There has already been significant interest in this network from academics and postgraduates from within and outside the faculty. Please add a comment below if you are interested in find out more.
Continue reading ‘Construction of identity network’

The 54th Settimana di studio (study week conference), hosted by the Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (CISAM) was themed ‘Oil and Wine in the High Middle Ages‘ and took place in the beautiful medieval town of Spoleto, Umbria (20-26 April 2006). I was fortunate to have won one of the borsa di studio awarded to ‘foreign’ students. The majority of the Settimana took place in the Palazzo Ancaiani where CISAM are based. The conference itself was highly varied with papers ranging from the theraputic use of oil and wine (Jacquart), to oil and and wine in Byzantine liturgy (Parenti).
Continue reading ‘Olio e vino nell’alto medioevo’

Today, we formally launch the ’scambi medievali’ website to the large community of scholars and students of the Middle Ages that exists all over the world. ‘Scambi medievali’ is Italian for ‘medieval exchanges’ and this site will also serve as the offical site for our Leverhulme Trust funded Research Project entitled ‘Medieval Cultures in Contact: Merchants, Objects and Exchanges in Southern Italy’. We are Dr Patricia Skinner, Reader in Medieval History, and Tehmina Goskar (née Bhote), PhD student of Medieval History, and are based in the Centre for Antiquity and the Middle Ages at the University of Southampton. Continue reading ‘Medieval exchanges online’

Next week, Birkbeck College (University of London) will be hosting an exciting conference called: Past Presented: Uses of the Past in Medieval European, Byzantine and Islamic Material Culture on 23 - 24 March 2006. The themes of the confernce are: ‘Identification’, ‘Topography’, ‘Constructing’ and ‘Inventing’. See the preliminary programme for details of the papers that will be given.

Following the publication of Y. Hen and M. Innes (eds.) 2000, The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: CUP) which primarily deals with the evidence from documentary sources, this conference will hopefully fill many ‘gaps’ in our knowledge of the uses and understanding of the past and demonstrate the crucial value of material culture (in all its various guises) in all aspects of medieval studies.