IV International Conference on the Middle Ages: Provisioning Medieval European Towns
This year, from October 10th to the 12th, the Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM | NOVA-FCSH) and the municipality of Castelo de Vide are organizing the IV International Conference on the Middle Ages, under the theme: Provisioning Medieval European Towns.
Medieval towns were large human gatherings, the provision of which was diverse and complex, implying great challenges to their ruling powers. In fact, towns were simultaneously production centres, consumers and distributors, and its range depended on the town’s size, which left clear imprints in its space, both inside the walls and its surrounding areas. The importance of this theme justified its selection for the International Conference on the Middle Ages that will take place in Castelo de Vide in 2019. Taking Christian and Muslim medieval Europe as the stage for reflexion, we wish to analyse the different issues generated by urban provisioning, drawing on diverse information sources and looking for ways to bring together perspectives from History, Archaeology, Art History, Literature, Law, among others.
We invite researchers from any scientific area interested in the subject of provisioning urban areas in the medieval period to submit sessions, papers or poster proposals within the range of the following thematic panels:
1. The intervention of powers over provisioning: strategies and tensions.
2. Evidences of provisioning in medieval urbanism: zonings and constructions.
3. Times for trading: Fairs and Markets
4. The faces of provisioning: masters, sellers and merchants.
5. On the way to the city: trackways, transportation and routes
6. Production and storage structures.
7. Living, eating and drinking in the city: consumption and standards of living
8. Supplying the craftsmen: the supply of raw materials
9. The urban taste: production and consumption of artistic and luxury goods
10. Financing supplies: money, credit and taxes
11. Supervising supplies: monopolies, taxes and fees.
12. The repercussions of supply crises: indebtedness, famines and revolts
13. Provisioning religious minorities
14. Speeches and representations about provisioning in the city: legislation, literature and iconography.
15. Provisioning Castelo de Vide during the Middle Ages.