In this episode, I’m joined by Longguo Li (Associate Professor at Peking University) and Yin Liu (Assistant Professor at Zhejiang University) to talk about how early medieval European history is studied in China today. We discuss Longguo’s recent article on medieval historiography, why historians in China are so interested in the Carolingian Empire, the translation of the Venerable Bede into Chinese, and the ‘Latin Revolution’ that’s taken place in China in recent years.

Works mentioned in the podcast:

Longguo Li, ‘“From “walking” to “sitting”: Changes in the practices of European historiography from ancient to medieval times’, Chinese Studies in History 53:2 (2020), 93-106

Yin Liu, ‘Baptismal renunciation and the moral reform of Charlemagne's Christian empire’, Traditio vol. 76 (2021) p. 117-155

Ernst Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (1957)

Music: Karen Gomyo (CC BY-NC 3.0)

Image: the Venerable Bede at work https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/bke/0047/1v

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How did government actually work in al-Andalus? In this episode, I discuss the kitaba, or 'art of the secretary', with Bruna Soravia. What did these secretaries (kuttab) do for rulers in eleventh-century Muslim Iberia? And how has the historiography of al-Andalus changed in recent years?

Works mentioned in the podcast:

• Umberto Bongianino, The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West Maghribi Round Scripts and the Andalusi Identity, forthcoming
• Umberto Bongianino, "A Rediscovered Almoravid Qurʾān in the Bavarian State Library, Munich (Cod. arab. 4)", Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 11 (2020)
• Pierre Guichard and Bruna Soravia,  Les royaumes de taifas: apogée culturel et déclin politique des émirats andalous du XIe siècle (2007)
• Bruna Soravia, 'Secretaries and the running of government', in The Routledge Handbook of Muslim Iberia, ed. Maribel Fierro (2020), pp 271-289
• Bruna Soravia, La maîtrise de l'art de la prose d'Ibn ʿAbd al-Gafūr al-Kalāʿī, forthcoming

Music: Karen Gomyo (CC BY-NC 3.0)

Image: Munich BSB Cod. arab. 4, p. 13 (CC-BY-NC 4.0)

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Northwestern Iberia is renowned amongst medievalists for its wealth of charters. In this episode, I talk to Alvaro Carvajal Castro about how historians are using these documents in concert with archaeology to investigate social and political changes in the 10th and 11th centuries, as kings and elites increasingly intruded upon long-established peasant communities.

Works mentioned in the podcast

Carvajal Castro, Alvaro, 'Early Medieval Commons? Or How the History of Early Medieval Europe Could Benefit from a Necessary Conversation: The Case From NW Iberia', International Journal of the Commons, 15(1) (2021), 338–353. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1109

Carvajal Castro, Álvaro and Tejerizo-García, Carlos (eds.), El Estado y la Alta Edad Media (Bilbao, Forthcoming).

Davies, Wendy, Windows on Justice in Northern Iberia, 800-1000 (London, 2016)

Escalona, Julio, and Iñaki Martín Viso. "The Life and Death of an Historiographical Folly: The Early Medieval Depopulation And Repopulation of the Duero Basin." In Beyond the Reconquista: New Directions in the History of Medieval Iberia (711–1085), edited by Simon Barton and Robert Portass, 21-51. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

Quirós Castillo, Juan Antonio. "An Archaeology of “Small Worlds”: Social Inequality in Early Medieval Iberian Rural Communities." Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 12, no. 1 (2020): 3-27.

Music: Karen Gomyo (CC BY-NC 3.0)

Image: Escorial Beatus, B_Escorial_a.jpg (1650×1928) (wikimedia.org)

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