Session 1: Conquest and Chroniclers. The Norman Conquest of Muslim Sicily gave rise to political, economic, religious and cultural frontiers that would be instrumental in the development of new states and identities. Particularly within the last decade, understanding of the way scholarship should approach the Conquest has been transformed by studies that have done much to move beyond questions of chronology and ask new questions of the extant evidence. However, scholarly understanding of this seminal period is still largely shaped by a strictly limited number of narrative sources. Here, questions still remain concerning to what extent both chroniclers and later transcribers shaped these sources through the medium of both actual and perceived memories of the past. This session welcomes papers that considers questions of “memory” and its implications for scholarly understanding of the sources of the Norman Conquest of Sicily.
Session 2: The Norman Conquest in the historiographical tradition. In both the manuscript and historiographical record, the narrative transmission of the events of the Norman Conquest of Sicily, has often been shaped by religious, political and national considerations. However, as scholarship has increasingly moved beyond these traditional concerns, how historiography should approach this diverse historiographical legacy still divides scholarly opinion. This session welcomes papers that address the formation of the Norman historiographical tradition with a particular focus on questions of how “historical memories” should be explained and understood in both the manuscript and historiographical traditions.
Abstracts for papers of 20 minutes alongside an academic CV should be sent to John Aspinwall at j.aspinwall@lancs.ac.uk. The deadline for submission is the 1st September 2017. A selection will be made on the basis of the abstracts submitted and applicants will be notified in early September.
