MHDRN at the International Medieval Congress 2015

In July our staff and students will appear in numerous sessions at the International Medieval Congress held at Leeds University.

This event is an annual highlight in the calendar for medievalists of all disciplines. This year Dr Peter Darby speaks on, ‘Reforming the Rustici: Heresy and Apocalypse in Bede’s Letter to Plegwine’. Dr Rob Lutton speaks on, ‘The Holy Name in Late Medieval England: Reformist Religious Reading’. Dr Claire Taylor’s paper is entitled, ‘Apostolic Economics: Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Property in the High Middle Ages’.
 
New this year, we are sponsoring our first post-graduate session, entitled ‘At the Chalk Face: Confronting Popular Heresy in Practice’. This session brings together work on the confrontation of popular heresy by secular and monastic authorities as they encountered real-world examples (which many medieval people writing ‘authoritatively’ about heresy never actually did).

• The deposition of the converted Cathar perfectus William Raffard is discussed for the insights it gave 13th-century inquisitors into specific familial and social networks. Harry Barmby, University of Nottingham: ‘William Raffard: a Converted Cathar Perfect and his Community’.

• Peter of Sicily’s ninth-century tract concerning Paulician heretics within the Byzantine Empire is examined for its dating in the context of his diplomatic activity involving the sect. Carl Dixon, University of Nottingham: ‘From Armenia to Bulgaria? The Transmission of Heterodoxy in Peter of Sicily’s History of the Paulicians’.

• Cistercian discourses on the use of violence against religious dissidents are explored as changing phenomena, and as the work of monks involved specifically in anti-heretical missions. Stamatia Noutsou, Msaryk University, Brno: ‘The Cistercians and violence: the Cistercian approaches to the violent persecution of the heretics, 1145–1209’.

Together, the papers address medieval approaches to religious dissent as they emerged in practical contexts.
 
If you will be at Leeds, please come along. You can also meet us at the Institute for Medieval Research wine reception.