Please note that the original venue was changed due to technical reasons. The event will be held at TIGy Room (203), in the Monument Building.
Imperial Spheres and the Adriatic: Byzantium, the Carolingians and the Treaty of Aachen (812), ed. by Mladen Ančić, Jonathan Shepard and Trpimir Vedriš. Routledge, 2018
Presented by Marianne Sághy (CEU)
Although often mentioned in textbooks about the Carolingian and Byzantine empires, the Treaty of Aachen has not received much close attention. This volume attempts not just to fill the gap, but to view the episode through both micro- and macro-lenses. Introductory chapters review the state of relations between Byzantium and the Frankish realm in the eighth and early ninth centuries, crises facing Byzantine emperors much closer to home, and the relevance of the Bulgarian problem to affairs on the Adriatic. Dalmatia’s coastal towns and the populations of the interior receive extensive attention, including the region’s ecclesiastical history and cultural affiliations. So do the local politics of Dalmatia, Venice and the Carolingian marches, and their interaction with the Byzantino-Frankish confrontation. The dynamics of the Franks’ relations with the Avars are analysed and, here too, the three-way play among the two empires and ‘in-between’ parties is a theme. Archaeological indications of the Franks’ presence are collated with what the literary sources reveal about local elites’ aspirations. The economic dimension to the Byzantino-Frankish competition for Venice is fully explored, a special feature of the volume being archaeological evidence for a resurgence of trade between the Upper Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean from the second half of the eighth century onwards.
Legenda Vetus, Acta Processus Canonizationis et Miracula Sanctae Margaritae de Hungaria. The Oldest Legend, Acts of the Canonization Process and Miracles of Saint Margaret of Hungary. Ed. and annotated by Ildikó Csepregi, Gábor Klaniczay and Bence Péterfi, translated by Ildikó Csepregi, Clifford Flanigan and Louis Perraud. Central European Medieval Texts Series, vol. 8, Budapest: CEU Press, 2017. pp. 885.
Presented by Ottó Gecser (Eötvös Loránd University)
This volume is the second in the series presenting hagiographical narratives from medieval Central Europe. It contains the most important hagiographical corpus of medieval Hungarian history: that of Saint Margaret (1242–1270), daughter of King Béla IV, who lived her life as a Dominican nun. Besides publishing the Latin text and the English translation of her oldest legend and the acts of her canonization investigation in 1276, on the basis of existing source editions, we have also added here a series of recently discovered documents on her fifteenth-century miracles, edited here for the first time.
Pagans and Christians in the Late Roman Empire. New Evidence, New Approaches (4th-8th centuries). Ed. By Marianne Sághy and Edward M. Schoolman. CEU Press, 2017
http://www.ceupress.com/books/html/Pagans%20and%20Christians.htm
First volume: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/pagans-and-christians-in-late-antique-rome/EBDF974C7E8330C3FE36D1DCB78613A3
Presented by István Perczel (CEU) and Levente Nagy (University of Pécs)
Do the terms ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian,’ ‘transition from paganism to Christianity’ still hold as explanatory devices to apply to the political, religious and cultural transformation experienced Empire-wise? Revisiting ‘pagans’ and ‘Christians’ in Late Antiquity has been a fertile site of scholarship in recent years: the paradigm shift in the interpretation of the relations between ‘pagans’ and ‘Christians’ replaced the old ‘conflict model’ with a subtler, complex approach and triggered the upsurge of new explanatory models such as multiculturalism, cohabitation, cooperation, identity, or group cohesion.
This collection of essays, inscribes itself into the revisionist discussion of pagan-Christian relations over a broad territory and time-span, the Roman Empire from the fourth to the eighth century. A set of papers argues that if ‘paganism’ had never been fully extirpated or denied by the multiethnic educated elite that managed the Roman Empire, ‘Christianity’ came to be presented by the same elite as providing a way for a wider group of people to combine true philosophy and right religion. The speed with which this happened is just as remarkable as the long persistence of paganism after the sea-change of the fourth century that made Christianity the official religion of the State. For a long time afterwards, ‘pagans’ and ‘Christians’ lived ‘in between’ polytheistic and monotheist traditions and disputed Classical and non-Classical legacies.
