Books by Verena Krebs
Elements in the Global Middle Ages Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024
This Cambridge Element offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the histories of the Ethiopian... more This Cambridge Element offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the histories of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands from late antiquity to the late medieval period, updating traditional Western academic perspectives. Early scholarship, often by philologists and religious scholars, upheld 'Ethiopia' as an isolated repository of ancient Jewish and Christian texts. This work reframes the region's history, highlighting the political, economic, and cultural interconnections of different kingdoms, polities, and peoples. Utilizing recent advancements in Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies as well as Medieval Studies, it reevaluates key instances of contact between 'Ethiopia' and the world of Afro-Eurasia, situating the histories of the Christian, Muslim, and local-religious or 'pagan' groups living in the Red Sea littoral and the Eritrean-Ethiopian highlands in the context of the Global Middle Ages
Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe, 2021
This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europ... more This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen embassies dispatched to the Latin West by the kings of Solomonic Ethiopia, a powerful Christian kingdom in the medieval Horn of Africa. Drawing on sources from Europe, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it examines the Ethiopian kings’ motivations for sending out their missions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries – and argues that a desire to acquire religious treasures and foreign artisans drove this early intercontinental diplomacy. Moreover, the Ethiopian initiation of contacts with the distant Christian sphere of Latin Europe appears to have been intimately connected to a local political agenda of building monumental ecclesiastical architecture in the North-East African highlands, and asserted the Ethiopian rulers’ claim of universal kingship and rightful descent from the biblical king Solomon. Shedding new light on the self-identity of a late medieval African dynasty at the height of its power, this book challenges conventional narratives of African-European encounters on the eve of the so-called ‘Age of Exploration'.
Front Matter and Introduction of the book "Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe", published by Palgrave Macmillan, March 2021.
A preview of the book — including the first two chapters — is available on Google Books at https://books.google.de/books?id=XYokEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
Journal Articles & Book Contributions by Verena Krebs
in: Ethiopia at the Crossroads, ed. by Christine Sciacca, 2024
Krebs, Verena. 2024. ‘Ethiopia’s Connections with Late Medieval Europe’, in Ethiopia at the Cross... more Krebs, Verena. 2024. ‘Ethiopia’s Connections with Late Medieval Europe’, in Ethiopia at the Crossroads, ed. by Christine Sciacca, Baltimore: The Walters Art Museum Publications, 253-259.
in: Der Perlentaucher. Festschrift für Stefan Weninger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 6. August 2024, ed. by Heeßel, Nils P. / Tsukanova, Vera / Waltisberg, Michael, 2024
in: The Routledge Companion to Global Renaissance Art, ed. by Stephen J. Campbell and Stephanie Porras , 2024
In the early 1970s, museum curators in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, purchased a small icon from the cit... more In the early 1970s, museum curators in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, purchased a small icon from the city's antiquarian market (Figure 6.1.1). Against a vibrant background of red and green, it shows an encounter between two saints-St. George and abba Gäbrä Märʿawi. While the former is second in popularity only to the Virgin Mary in Ethiopian icon painting, the latter is an obscure 14th-century saint from the northern region of Tǝgray. The icon's style and inscriptions allow for it to be dated to the late 15th or early 16th century. Indeed, it is a prime example of Ethiopian painting of the period. Yet, questions about the work's provenance and context seem almost impossible to answer. Who painted the icon? For what purpose was it created? Since Ethiopian patrons of the period customarily donated religious works to specific monasteries and churches upon their completion, where was it placed, and for what reason? And most puzzling of all, why depict an encounter between these two saints-famous St. George and a virtually unknown local ecclesiastic? This essay seeks to offer a basic framework for making sense of this piece and others like it. Situating the icon in its art historical and historical background, I will argue that it was perhaps a provincial nobleman from the northern reaches of the Solomonic kingdom who commissioned it to heighten his standing at the Ethiopian royal court in a moment of political upheaval. By having an artisan portray these saints in a specific way and by donating it to a religious centre far from his home region, our patron would seem to have communicated two messages: his recognition of the Solomonic house's claim of descent from biblical and late antique kingship-and his own assertion of worldliness and proximity to kingly power in the late medieval Horn of Africa. A careful consideration of this work can, therefore, not only enrich our view on Ethiopian painting in the Middle Ages but it may also shine fresh light onto elite piety, patronage practices, and political dynamics among the Solomonic nobility at the turn of the 16th century.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2019
A widely reported story in the historiography on medieval Ethiopia relates how, in the year 1306,... more A widely reported story in the historiography on medieval Ethiopia relates how, in the year 1306, an “Ethiopian” embassy visited the court of Pope Clement V in Avignon and offered military aid in the fight against Islam to Latin Christianity. This article re-examines the source – Jacopo Filippo Foresti's Supplementum Chronicarum – thought to document an episode of one of the earliest European–African Christian contacts. It investigates Foresti's own sources, their historiographical transmission history, and the feasibility of relating it to the socio-political entity of Solomonic Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa in the early fourteenth century, concluding that Foresti's information was based on Latin Christian texts, such as the Legenda Aurea and the myth of Prester John, only. The ‘Ethiopian’ embassy of 1306 is thus not borne out by sources and should be dismissed in scholarship, resetting the timeline of official Ethiopian–Latin Christian contacts in the late medieval period.
in 'Crusading in Africa', ed. Benjamin Weber, Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi, 245-274, 2019
This paper examines a series of diplomatic exchanges between Christian Solomonic Ethiopia and the... more This paper examines a series of diplomatic exchanges between Christian Solomonic Ethiopia and the Mamluk Sultanate in the 1440s relating to Ethiopian threats of blocking the river Nile as a response to Mamluk violence against the Coptic population of Egypt; it also frames these exchanges against a larger backdrop of Latin Christian crusading hopes directed at Solomonic Ethiopia in the mid-15th century.
Orbis Aethiopicus. Beiträge zur Geschichte, Religion und Kunst Äthiopiens XVII, eds. Walter Raunig and Asfa-Wossen Asserate, J.H. Röll Verlag, pp.87—121, 2020
This article aims to shed some light on the interplay between the progressive conflation of Solom... more This article aims to shed some light on the interplay between the progressive conflation of Solomonic Ethiopian kingship with indigenous Latin Christian traditions relating to the mythical Prester John in the late Middle Ages. After looking at early descriptions of Ethiopia and Ethiopians in Latin sources, it examines how Latin authors gradually began to conflate the empire of Prester John with that of Solomonic Ethiopia – and how ideas originally ascribed onto the mythical Prester John were increasingly ascribed to the nägäśt of Solomonic Ethiopia. A subsequent evaluation of names and titles used in 15th and early 16th century Latin correspondence directed at the rulers of Solomonic Ethiopia reveals that this conflation appears to have been both immediate and tangible for contemporaries. The last section of the article asks whether and how actual Ethiopian ambassadors appear to have – either intentionally or not – freely contributed to the fanciful Latin conflation of the Solomonic nǝguś with the mythical Prester John. I argue that the gradual conflation of the myth of Prester John with Solomonic Ethiopian Christian rulership from the mid-14th century thus laid the groundwork for Latin Christian interests in Ethiopia prior to the actual onset of Ethiopian-European diplomacy, eventually shaping the idea of Solomonic Ethiopia as a uniquely desirable military partner in Latin Europe – an idea that significantly impacted the course of Ethiopian-European late medieval diplomacy well into the 16th century.
Orbis Aethiopicus. Beiträge zur Geschichte, Religion und Kunst Äthiopiens XVII, eds. Walter Raunig and Asfa-Wossen Asserate, J.H. Röll Verlag, pp.189—227, 2020
Scholarship on Ethiopian art has long known about the existence of post-Byzantine icons dateable ... more Scholarship on Ethiopian art has long known about the existence of post-Byzantine icons dateable to the 15th and 16th century in Ethiopia. This article offers up a preliminary catalogue of all post-Byzantine icons documented as present in late medieval Ethiopia. It reveals that their number had hitherto been significantly underestimated in scholarship: instead of a mere handful, some twenty-nine post-Byzantine icons dateable to the 15th and early 16th century are attested in both the material as well as the written record. The vast majority of these objects was produced in the Eastern Mediterranean; most can be located in date and time as present in Ethiopia before 1530, and thus the wars between the Solomonic Christian kingdom and Sultanate of Adal the second quarter of the 16th century.
Translocations. Historical Enquiries into the Displacement of Cultural Assets https://translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/stanley, 2020
A section of Henry M. Stanley's "Coomassie and Magdala: The Story of Two British Campaigns in Afr... more A section of Henry M. Stanley's "Coomassie and Magdala: The Story of Two British Campaigns in Africa" followed by a scholarly comment written for the Translocations Anthology - a research blog that examines and comments on source texts since antiquity about looted art, art as war booty and the translocation of cultural assets. Format of PDF may be corrupted, please see original blog post at https://translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/stanley
In the second half of the 19th century, the journalist Henry Morton Stanley covered the exploits of the Anglo-Indian invasion force of the ›Abyssinian Expedition‹ against the Ethiopian king Tewodros II, which came to a head at the Battle of Mäqdäla on 13 April 1868. After storming Tewodros‘ stronghold of Mäqdäla, the British soldiers looted the mountain fortress – which had served as repository for countless treasures recently looted by Tewodros himself from all over the Ethiopian kingdom as a means to establish his claim to sovereignty. A crown and chalice described by Stanley can be identified with items now in the possession of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where claims for restitution date back to the 1870s.
Entangled Religions. Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Religious Contact and Transfer, 2018
This paper presents results of the first field trip aimed at locating and studying the remains of... more This paper presents results of the first field trip aimed at locating and studying the remains of Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) monasteries, as part of an ongoing research project aimed at shedding light on Beta Israel monasticism. Prior to this field trip, no Beta Israel monastery had ever been mapped, and no study focused on these monasteries has ever been conducted. On the trip, two former Beta Israel villages north of Lake Tana were examined: Amba Gwalit and Aṭeyä. At Amba Gwalit, the remains of a Beta Israel holy site, which may have been a monastery containing a synagogue and surrounded by an enclosure wall, were documented. In a nearby Beta Israel cemetery, the tomb of a well-known Beta Israel monk was found. At Aṭeyä, remains of well-preserved Beta Israel dwellings were examined. Both sites demonstrated that Beta Israel material culture in Ethiopia is sufficiently preserved to enable further research aimed at locating and examining Beta Israel monasteries.
Encyclopedia Entries & Book Reviews by Verena Krebs
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa, 2021
The origins of Christianity in Ethiopia date back to the first half of the fourth century, when t... more The origins of Christianity in Ethiopia date back to the first half of the fourth century, when the Aksumite king Ezana converted to the religion, together with his court. By the sixth century, Christian Aksum had become a major power in the Red Sea region, leading military campaigns against the Jewish kingdom of Himyar on the Arabian Peninsula to stop the persecution of local Christians. Owing to its inception in the fourth century, the Ethiopian Church was officially a bishopric of the Coptic Church, albeit with its own ecclesiastical language, literature, and traditions.
H-Soz-Kult , 2018
Verena Krebs: Rezension zu: Fauvelle, François-Xavier: Das goldene Rhinozeros. Afrika im Mittelal... more Verena Krebs: Rezension zu: Fauvelle, François-Xavier: Das goldene Rhinozeros. Afrika im Mittelalter. München 2017 , in: H-Soz-Kult, 14.12.2018, <www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-28270>.
Past Calls / Talks / Panels / Lectures by Verena Krebs
Call for Papers, 2023
The study of European-Asian interaction or the medieval Mediterranean has long been established w... more The study of European-Asian interaction or the medieval Mediterranean has long been established within Medieval Studies; in more recent years, the Indian Ocean has also become the subject of increasing scholarly attention. The integration of the role of the extensive continent of Africa, its networks, realms, and agents, into the concept of the "Global Medieval", however, remains an ongoing challenge for the field. Seeking to utilise the special thematic strand of "Networks and Entanglements" of the 2023 International Medieval Congress in Leeds, we aim to put together a series of sessions that address the topic and question of "African Networks and Entanglements in a 'Medieval World'".
We welcome papers at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels that centre the role of African realms, political entities, or agents as well as the economic, religious, cultural, intellectual, artistic, or diplomatic networks and entanglements from Atlantic and West Africa to the Southern Mediterranean to the Western Indian Ocean region between 300 and 1600 CE, as well as papers that interrogate the role of African realms within 'medieval' world system(s), and/or those that address and challenge the boundaries created by the disciplinary and linguistic constraints of the academy.
Papers from scholars of all career stages and research backgrounds (history, art history, archaeology, philology, religious studies, etc.) are welcome. Travel bursaries to support the attendance of early career researchers, independent scholars, and those working outside of North American/European academe are available.
Abstracts of up to 250 words should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Monday, 19th of September 2022. Please include your preferred paper title, A-V and bursary requirements and your contact details (full name, title, affiliation, address, email address).
Crisis and Resilience in Medieval Africa - Navigating Political, Environmental, and Cultural Uphe... more Crisis and Resilience in Medieval Africa - Navigating Political, Environmental, and Cultural Upheaval
Call for Papers
International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK
1–4 July 2024
The International Medieval Congress in Leeds for 2024 has announced “Crisis” as its special thematic strand. Building on last year's theme of “African Networks and Entanglements”, we invite contributions for a series of sessions titled “Crisis and Resilience in Medieval Africa”. We aim to investigate how diverse African realms and agents — from the Atlantic and West Africa to the Southern Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean — navigated various crises between 300 and 1600 CE.
We encourage papers delve into the role of specific African realms, political entities, or agents at micro-, meso-, and macro level, and are interested in research that centers political, economic, religious, cultural, intellectual, artistic, or diplomatic responses.
We welcome explorations of the following questions, among others:
• How did medieval kingdoms and societies respond to crises? What mechanisms of resilience were in place?
• How were crises represented and understood? Were there unique religious or philosophical frameworks for understanding and negotiating crises?
• What were the economic consequences of crises? Did they lead to shifts in trade networks or economic systems?
• Crisis and the environment: How did environmental crises like drought, famine, epidemics, or natural disasters affect political and social structures?
• How did crises catalyze or disrupt religious and cultural interactions within different African realms and regions, as well as with the larger Afro-Eurasian world?
We encourage abstracts from scholars at all career stages and from various research backgrounds, including history, art history, archaeology, philology, and religious studies.
Travel bursaries are available to support the attendance of early career researchers, independent scholars, and those working outside of North American/European academe.
Abstracts of up to 100 words (an additional longer abstract of up to 300 words for the consideration of the ¬¬¬session organisers is optional) should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Wednesday, 20th of September 2023. Please also include your preferred paper title, A-V and bursary requirements, 4 keywords and your full contact details (name, title, affiliation, postal address, telephone number, email address).
Appel à candidature pour congrès
Afrique matérielle : techniques, influences et échanges
Congrè... more Appel à candidature pour congrès
Afrique matérielle : techniques, influences et échanges
Congrès international médiéval, Leeds, UK, 1-4 juillet 2019
L’Afrique a une riche histoire matérielle. Non seulement de nombreuses sociétés africaines sont reconnues depuis longtemps pour leurs compétences matérielles, en particulier dans la métallurgie, mais les matériaux africains sont continuellement utilisés dans des ateliers, notamment ceux de l’or et de l’ivoire. L'Afrique médiévale offre une collection riche et variée de techniques, de designs et d'utilisations d'objets à travers ses régions, à la fois pour l'art et pour les cérémoniaux.
Cet appel à contributions sollicite des contributions pour des sessions centrées sur le volet principal du Congrès médiéval international de 2019. Matérialités ou culture matérielle. Le but de ces sessions est de présenter au Congrès une sélection variée de recherches sur l’Afrique médiévale, avec des thèmes géographiques à travers l’Afrique, du Nord au Sud, d’Ouest en Est, et l’histoire des objets et savoir-faire africains. Les participants sont invités à soumettre des articles traitant de tous les aspects de la matérialité de l’Afrique médiévale, notamment :
• Le voyage et la circulation des objets.
• Techniques et outils de fabrication d'objets, y compris les technologies à petite échelle.
• Communautés de création d'objets.
• Formation à la création d'objet, apprentissage et éducation.
• Ressources en matériaux.
• Formes d'objets.
• Influence des objets.
• Rôles des objets
• Messages des objets.
• Design esthétique des objets.
• Appropriation des objets par d'autres.
• Objets après la vie.
• Compréhension contemporaine de la signification des objets.
• Histoire intellectuelle des objets.
• Théories indigènes des objets et de la fabrication des objets
Nous accueillons favorablement les propositions de communication de 20 minutes dans quatre séances d’analyses historiques, littéraires, archéologiques, philologiques et interdisciplinaires, menées par des chercheurs de tous les niveaux et de tous les milieux de recherche.
Une bourse pour soutenir la participation des candidats peut être demandée.
Les résumés de 250 mots maximums doivent être envoyés à l’adresse [email protected] avant le 23 septembre 2018.
Veuillez inclure votre titre, vos exigences audiovisuelles et vos coordonnées (nom complet, titre, affiliation, adresse, adresse électronique)
Organisateurs / contacts:
Verena Krebs, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany • [email protected]
Adam Simmons, Lancaster University, UK • [email protected]
Abdallah Fili, Chouaib Coukkali University at El-Jadida, Moroc • [email protected]
Wendy L. Belcher, Princeton University, USA • [email protected]
Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, Hamburg University, Germany • [email protected]
Africa has a rich history of materiality. Not only are numerous African societies long renown for... more Africa has a rich history of materiality. Not only are numerous African societies long renown for their material skills, particularly in metal work, African materials have continually been used in workshops further afield, notably gold and ivory. Medieval Africa offers a rich and varied collection of techniques, designs, and uses for objects across its regions for both art and ceremony.
This call for papers seeks contributions for sessions centred on the main strand of the 2019 International Medieval Congress: 'Materialities'. The aim of the sessions is to bring a diverse selection of research on medieval Africa to the Congress, with topics ranging geographically across Africa from north to south, west to east, and including the story of African objects and craftsmanship outside of Africa. Participants are invited to submit papers addressing all aspects of medieval African materiality, including but not limited to:
· The journey and circulation of objects · Object-making techniques and tools, including small-scale technologies · Object-making communities · Object-making training, apprenticeship, and education · The sourcing of materials · Object forms · Object influences · Object roles · Object messages · Object design and aesthetics · Appropriation of objects by others · Object afterlives · Contemporary understanding of object significance · Intellectual history of objects · Indigenous theorization of objects and object making.
We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes' length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, philological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles, from scholars of all career stages and research backgrounds.
Abstracts of up to 250 words should be sent to the email account [email protected] by Sunday, 23rd of September 2018. Please include your preferred paper title, A-V requirements and your contact details (full name, title, affiliation, address, email address).
Africa has always been a nexus of trade routes, its history entangled with the continents that su... more Africa has always been a nexus of trade routes, its history entangled with the continents that surround it: Europe, Asia, and America. These connections and interactions, whether productive or brutal, have been reasonably well documented for the classical period as well as from the onset of modern colonialism, but a chronological blank spot lingers on our historical memory. The papers in these sessions aim to recover parts of our collective memory loss, covering topics such as the Byzantine influence on Nubia, Ethiopian Jews, and the golden age of scholarship in Timbuktu.
Africa has always been a nexus of trade routes, its history entangled with the continents that su... more Africa has always been a nexus of trade routes, its history entangled with the continents that surround it: Europe, Asia, and America. These connections and interactions, whether productive or brutal, have been reasonably well documented for the classical period as well as from the onset of modern colonialism, but a chronological blank spot lingers on our historical memory. Why is it so difficult to remember the Middle Ages – their beginning, middle, and end – in and for Africa?
The International Medieval Congress in 2018 between 2-5 th July 2018 will focus on the theme of 'Memories' – and will be an ideal occasion for scholars working on sources and historiography relating to sub-Saharan Africa in the pre-modern period to exchange ideas. We specifically invite scholars working on a wide range of sources relating to Africa to help us reshape the impression of a purportedly 'forgotten' period within the larger historiographical field that focuses on Africa and its interactions with other continents.
We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes' length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, philological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles.
We endeavor to group papers into the following geographical sessions:
• The Nubia and the Red Sea Region
• Ethiopia and the Horn
• From Mogadishu to Sofala: the Swahili Coast, the Indian Ocean and Zimbabwe
• Empires of the Sahara and Sahel
• Beyond the Desert Sea: From Ile-Ife to the Kingdom of Kongo
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
• The beginning of the Middle Ages: the interface and influence of Greek, Christian, and Arabic cultures with local communities, Trans-Saharan, Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean Trade;
• The middle of the Middle Ages: topics in Aksumite, Zagwe and early Solomonic history, Nubian Christian kingdoms, Islamic Sultanates of the Horn of Africa, the Swahili city states and Great Zimbabwe, the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Kanem, etc.
• The end of the Middle Ages: the onset of colonialism, shifting paradigms in trade and power relations
• Foreign sources on the continent, from China to Latin Europe, and from itineraries to maps
Abstracts of up to 200 words should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Monday, 25th of September 2017. Please include personal and contact details (including academic affiliation), paper title, abstract, and A-V requirements.
The five sessions will bring together papers on medieval Ethiopia, Egypt, the Red Sea and beyond ... more The five sessions will bring together papers on medieval Ethiopia, Egypt, the Red Sea and beyond from the fields of history, archaeology, art history and philology; special attention is given to the interaction between these regions and the Mediterranean, including artistic exchange, trade, and historiography. The first session examines the Red sea region as connecting the Mediterranean to Eastern Africa.; the second session highlights the religious plurality in medieval Ethiopia; the third one on artistic exchange and historiography. The mythical Prester John and other aspects of the Western image of Ethiopia will be explored in the fourth session. Finally, the fifth session explores changes in art, religion and apocalyptic visions of Ethiopia.
Uploads
Books by Verena Krebs
Front Matter and Introduction of the book "Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe", published by Palgrave Macmillan, March 2021.
A preview of the book — including the first two chapters — is available on Google Books at https://books.google.de/books?id=XYokEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
Journal Articles & Book Contributions by Verena Krebs
In the second half of the 19th century, the journalist Henry Morton Stanley covered the exploits of the Anglo-Indian invasion force of the ›Abyssinian Expedition‹ against the Ethiopian king Tewodros II, which came to a head at the Battle of Mäqdäla on 13 April 1868. After storming Tewodros‘ stronghold of Mäqdäla, the British soldiers looted the mountain fortress – which had served as repository for countless treasures recently looted by Tewodros himself from all over the Ethiopian kingdom as a means to establish his claim to sovereignty. A crown and chalice described by Stanley can be identified with items now in the possession of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where claims for restitution date back to the 1870s.
Encyclopedia Entries & Book Reviews by Verena Krebs
Past Calls / Talks / Panels / Lectures by Verena Krebs
We welcome papers at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels that centre the role of African realms, political entities, or agents as well as the economic, religious, cultural, intellectual, artistic, or diplomatic networks and entanglements from Atlantic and West Africa to the Southern Mediterranean to the Western Indian Ocean region between 300 and 1600 CE, as well as papers that interrogate the role of African realms within 'medieval' world system(s), and/or those that address and challenge the boundaries created by the disciplinary and linguistic constraints of the academy.
Papers from scholars of all career stages and research backgrounds (history, art history, archaeology, philology, religious studies, etc.) are welcome. Travel bursaries to support the attendance of early career researchers, independent scholars, and those working outside of North American/European academe are available.
Abstracts of up to 250 words should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Monday, 19th of September 2022. Please include your preferred paper title, A-V and bursary requirements and your contact details (full name, title, affiliation, address, email address).
Call for Papers
International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK
1–4 July 2024
The International Medieval Congress in Leeds for 2024 has announced “Crisis” as its special thematic strand. Building on last year's theme of “African Networks and Entanglements”, we invite contributions for a series of sessions titled “Crisis and Resilience in Medieval Africa”. We aim to investigate how diverse African realms and agents — from the Atlantic and West Africa to the Southern Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean — navigated various crises between 300 and 1600 CE.
We encourage papers delve into the role of specific African realms, political entities, or agents at micro-, meso-, and macro level, and are interested in research that centers political, economic, religious, cultural, intellectual, artistic, or diplomatic responses.
We welcome explorations of the following questions, among others:
• How did medieval kingdoms and societies respond to crises? What mechanisms of resilience were in place?
• How were crises represented and understood? Were there unique religious or philosophical frameworks for understanding and negotiating crises?
• What were the economic consequences of crises? Did they lead to shifts in trade networks or economic systems?
• Crisis and the environment: How did environmental crises like drought, famine, epidemics, or natural disasters affect political and social structures?
• How did crises catalyze or disrupt religious and cultural interactions within different African realms and regions, as well as with the larger Afro-Eurasian world?
We encourage abstracts from scholars at all career stages and from various research backgrounds, including history, art history, archaeology, philology, and religious studies.
Travel bursaries are available to support the attendance of early career researchers, independent scholars, and those working outside of North American/European academe.
Abstracts of up to 100 words (an additional longer abstract of up to 300 words for the consideration of the ¬¬¬session organisers is optional) should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Wednesday, 20th of September 2023. Please also include your preferred paper title, A-V and bursary requirements, 4 keywords and your full contact details (name, title, affiliation, postal address, telephone number, email address).
Afrique matérielle : techniques, influences et échanges
Congrès international médiéval, Leeds, UK, 1-4 juillet 2019
L’Afrique a une riche histoire matérielle. Non seulement de nombreuses sociétés africaines sont reconnues depuis longtemps pour leurs compétences matérielles, en particulier dans la métallurgie, mais les matériaux africains sont continuellement utilisés dans des ateliers, notamment ceux de l’or et de l’ivoire. L'Afrique médiévale offre une collection riche et variée de techniques, de designs et d'utilisations d'objets à travers ses régions, à la fois pour l'art et pour les cérémoniaux.
Cet appel à contributions sollicite des contributions pour des sessions centrées sur le volet principal du Congrès médiéval international de 2019. Matérialités ou culture matérielle. Le but de ces sessions est de présenter au Congrès une sélection variée de recherches sur l’Afrique médiévale, avec des thèmes géographiques à travers l’Afrique, du Nord au Sud, d’Ouest en Est, et l’histoire des objets et savoir-faire africains. Les participants sont invités à soumettre des articles traitant de tous les aspects de la matérialité de l’Afrique médiévale, notamment :
• Le voyage et la circulation des objets.
• Techniques et outils de fabrication d'objets, y compris les technologies à petite échelle.
• Communautés de création d'objets.
• Formation à la création d'objet, apprentissage et éducation.
• Ressources en matériaux.
• Formes d'objets.
• Influence des objets.
• Rôles des objets
• Messages des objets.
• Design esthétique des objets.
• Appropriation des objets par d'autres.
• Objets après la vie.
• Compréhension contemporaine de la signification des objets.
• Histoire intellectuelle des objets.
• Théories indigènes des objets et de la fabrication des objets
Nous accueillons favorablement les propositions de communication de 20 minutes dans quatre séances d’analyses historiques, littéraires, archéologiques, philologiques et interdisciplinaires, menées par des chercheurs de tous les niveaux et de tous les milieux de recherche.
Une bourse pour soutenir la participation des candidats peut être demandée.
Les résumés de 250 mots maximums doivent être envoyés à l’adresse [email protected] avant le 23 septembre 2018.
Veuillez inclure votre titre, vos exigences audiovisuelles et vos coordonnées (nom complet, titre, affiliation, adresse, adresse électronique)
Organisateurs / contacts:
Verena Krebs, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany • [email protected]
Adam Simmons, Lancaster University, UK • [email protected]
Abdallah Fili, Chouaib Coukkali University at El-Jadida, Moroc • [email protected]
Wendy L. Belcher, Princeton University, USA • [email protected]
Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, Hamburg University, Germany • [email protected]
This call for papers seeks contributions for sessions centred on the main strand of the 2019 International Medieval Congress: 'Materialities'. The aim of the sessions is to bring a diverse selection of research on medieval Africa to the Congress, with topics ranging geographically across Africa from north to south, west to east, and including the story of African objects and craftsmanship outside of Africa. Participants are invited to submit papers addressing all aspects of medieval African materiality, including but not limited to:
· The journey and circulation of objects · Object-making techniques and tools, including small-scale technologies · Object-making communities · Object-making training, apprenticeship, and education · The sourcing of materials · Object forms · Object influences · Object roles · Object messages · Object design and aesthetics · Appropriation of objects by others · Object afterlives · Contemporary understanding of object significance · Intellectual history of objects · Indigenous theorization of objects and object making.
We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes' length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, philological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles, from scholars of all career stages and research backgrounds.
Abstracts of up to 250 words should be sent to the email account [email protected] by Sunday, 23rd of September 2018. Please include your preferred paper title, A-V requirements and your contact details (full name, title, affiliation, address, email address).
The International Medieval Congress in 2018 between 2-5 th July 2018 will focus on the theme of 'Memories' – and will be an ideal occasion for scholars working on sources and historiography relating to sub-Saharan Africa in the pre-modern period to exchange ideas. We specifically invite scholars working on a wide range of sources relating to Africa to help us reshape the impression of a purportedly 'forgotten' period within the larger historiographical field that focuses on Africa and its interactions with other continents.
We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes' length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, philological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles.
We endeavor to group papers into the following geographical sessions:
• The Nubia and the Red Sea Region
• Ethiopia and the Horn
• From Mogadishu to Sofala: the Swahili Coast, the Indian Ocean and Zimbabwe
• Empires of the Sahara and Sahel
• Beyond the Desert Sea: From Ile-Ife to the Kingdom of Kongo
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
• The beginning of the Middle Ages: the interface and influence of Greek, Christian, and Arabic cultures with local communities, Trans-Saharan, Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean Trade;
• The middle of the Middle Ages: topics in Aksumite, Zagwe and early Solomonic history, Nubian Christian kingdoms, Islamic Sultanates of the Horn of Africa, the Swahili city states and Great Zimbabwe, the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Kanem, etc.
• The end of the Middle Ages: the onset of colonialism, shifting paradigms in trade and power relations
• Foreign sources on the continent, from China to Latin Europe, and from itineraries to maps
Abstracts of up to 200 words should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Monday, 25th of September 2017. Please include personal and contact details (including academic affiliation), paper title, abstract, and A-V requirements.
Front Matter and Introduction of the book "Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe", published by Palgrave Macmillan, March 2021.
A preview of the book — including the first two chapters — is available on Google Books at https://books.google.de/books?id=XYokEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
In the second half of the 19th century, the journalist Henry Morton Stanley covered the exploits of the Anglo-Indian invasion force of the ›Abyssinian Expedition‹ against the Ethiopian king Tewodros II, which came to a head at the Battle of Mäqdäla on 13 April 1868. After storming Tewodros‘ stronghold of Mäqdäla, the British soldiers looted the mountain fortress – which had served as repository for countless treasures recently looted by Tewodros himself from all over the Ethiopian kingdom as a means to establish his claim to sovereignty. A crown and chalice described by Stanley can be identified with items now in the possession of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where claims for restitution date back to the 1870s.
We welcome papers at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels that centre the role of African realms, political entities, or agents as well as the economic, religious, cultural, intellectual, artistic, or diplomatic networks and entanglements from Atlantic and West Africa to the Southern Mediterranean to the Western Indian Ocean region between 300 and 1600 CE, as well as papers that interrogate the role of African realms within 'medieval' world system(s), and/or those that address and challenge the boundaries created by the disciplinary and linguistic constraints of the academy.
Papers from scholars of all career stages and research backgrounds (history, art history, archaeology, philology, religious studies, etc.) are welcome. Travel bursaries to support the attendance of early career researchers, independent scholars, and those working outside of North American/European academe are available.
Abstracts of up to 250 words should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Monday, 19th of September 2022. Please include your preferred paper title, A-V and bursary requirements and your contact details (full name, title, affiliation, address, email address).
Call for Papers
International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK
1–4 July 2024
The International Medieval Congress in Leeds for 2024 has announced “Crisis” as its special thematic strand. Building on last year's theme of “African Networks and Entanglements”, we invite contributions for a series of sessions titled “Crisis and Resilience in Medieval Africa”. We aim to investigate how diverse African realms and agents — from the Atlantic and West Africa to the Southern Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean — navigated various crises between 300 and 1600 CE.
We encourage papers delve into the role of specific African realms, political entities, or agents at micro-, meso-, and macro level, and are interested in research that centers political, economic, religious, cultural, intellectual, artistic, or diplomatic responses.
We welcome explorations of the following questions, among others:
• How did medieval kingdoms and societies respond to crises? What mechanisms of resilience were in place?
• How were crises represented and understood? Were there unique religious or philosophical frameworks for understanding and negotiating crises?
• What were the economic consequences of crises? Did they lead to shifts in trade networks or economic systems?
• Crisis and the environment: How did environmental crises like drought, famine, epidemics, or natural disasters affect political and social structures?
• How did crises catalyze or disrupt religious and cultural interactions within different African realms and regions, as well as with the larger Afro-Eurasian world?
We encourage abstracts from scholars at all career stages and from various research backgrounds, including history, art history, archaeology, philology, and religious studies.
Travel bursaries are available to support the attendance of early career researchers, independent scholars, and those working outside of North American/European academe.
Abstracts of up to 100 words (an additional longer abstract of up to 300 words for the consideration of the ¬¬¬session organisers is optional) should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Wednesday, 20th of September 2023. Please also include your preferred paper title, A-V and bursary requirements, 4 keywords and your full contact details (name, title, affiliation, postal address, telephone number, email address).
Afrique matérielle : techniques, influences et échanges
Congrès international médiéval, Leeds, UK, 1-4 juillet 2019
L’Afrique a une riche histoire matérielle. Non seulement de nombreuses sociétés africaines sont reconnues depuis longtemps pour leurs compétences matérielles, en particulier dans la métallurgie, mais les matériaux africains sont continuellement utilisés dans des ateliers, notamment ceux de l’or et de l’ivoire. L'Afrique médiévale offre une collection riche et variée de techniques, de designs et d'utilisations d'objets à travers ses régions, à la fois pour l'art et pour les cérémoniaux.
Cet appel à contributions sollicite des contributions pour des sessions centrées sur le volet principal du Congrès médiéval international de 2019. Matérialités ou culture matérielle. Le but de ces sessions est de présenter au Congrès une sélection variée de recherches sur l’Afrique médiévale, avec des thèmes géographiques à travers l’Afrique, du Nord au Sud, d’Ouest en Est, et l’histoire des objets et savoir-faire africains. Les participants sont invités à soumettre des articles traitant de tous les aspects de la matérialité de l’Afrique médiévale, notamment :
• Le voyage et la circulation des objets.
• Techniques et outils de fabrication d'objets, y compris les technologies à petite échelle.
• Communautés de création d'objets.
• Formation à la création d'objet, apprentissage et éducation.
• Ressources en matériaux.
• Formes d'objets.
• Influence des objets.
• Rôles des objets
• Messages des objets.
• Design esthétique des objets.
• Appropriation des objets par d'autres.
• Objets après la vie.
• Compréhension contemporaine de la signification des objets.
• Histoire intellectuelle des objets.
• Théories indigènes des objets et de la fabrication des objets
Nous accueillons favorablement les propositions de communication de 20 minutes dans quatre séances d’analyses historiques, littéraires, archéologiques, philologiques et interdisciplinaires, menées par des chercheurs de tous les niveaux et de tous les milieux de recherche.
Une bourse pour soutenir la participation des candidats peut être demandée.
Les résumés de 250 mots maximums doivent être envoyés à l’adresse [email protected] avant le 23 septembre 2018.
Veuillez inclure votre titre, vos exigences audiovisuelles et vos coordonnées (nom complet, titre, affiliation, adresse, adresse électronique)
Organisateurs / contacts:
Verena Krebs, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany • [email protected]
Adam Simmons, Lancaster University, UK • [email protected]
Abdallah Fili, Chouaib Coukkali University at El-Jadida, Moroc • [email protected]
Wendy L. Belcher, Princeton University, USA • [email protected]
Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, Hamburg University, Germany • [email protected]
This call for papers seeks contributions for sessions centred on the main strand of the 2019 International Medieval Congress: 'Materialities'. The aim of the sessions is to bring a diverse selection of research on medieval Africa to the Congress, with topics ranging geographically across Africa from north to south, west to east, and including the story of African objects and craftsmanship outside of Africa. Participants are invited to submit papers addressing all aspects of medieval African materiality, including but not limited to:
· The journey and circulation of objects · Object-making techniques and tools, including small-scale technologies · Object-making communities · Object-making training, apprenticeship, and education · The sourcing of materials · Object forms · Object influences · Object roles · Object messages · Object design and aesthetics · Appropriation of objects by others · Object afterlives · Contemporary understanding of object significance · Intellectual history of objects · Indigenous theorization of objects and object making.
We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes' length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, philological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles, from scholars of all career stages and research backgrounds.
Abstracts of up to 250 words should be sent to the email account [email protected] by Sunday, 23rd of September 2018. Please include your preferred paper title, A-V requirements and your contact details (full name, title, affiliation, address, email address).
The International Medieval Congress in 2018 between 2-5 th July 2018 will focus on the theme of 'Memories' – and will be an ideal occasion for scholars working on sources and historiography relating to sub-Saharan Africa in the pre-modern period to exchange ideas. We specifically invite scholars working on a wide range of sources relating to Africa to help us reshape the impression of a purportedly 'forgotten' period within the larger historiographical field that focuses on Africa and its interactions with other continents.
We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes' length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, philological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles.
We endeavor to group papers into the following geographical sessions:
• The Nubia and the Red Sea Region
• Ethiopia and the Horn
• From Mogadishu to Sofala: the Swahili Coast, the Indian Ocean and Zimbabwe
• Empires of the Sahara and Sahel
• Beyond the Desert Sea: From Ile-Ife to the Kingdom of Kongo
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
• The beginning of the Middle Ages: the interface and influence of Greek, Christian, and Arabic cultures with local communities, Trans-Saharan, Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean Trade;
• The middle of the Middle Ages: topics in Aksumite, Zagwe and early Solomonic history, Nubian Christian kingdoms, Islamic Sultanates of the Horn of Africa, the Swahili city states and Great Zimbabwe, the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Kanem, etc.
• The end of the Middle Ages: the onset of colonialism, shifting paradigms in trade and power relations
• Foreign sources on the continent, from China to Latin Europe, and from itineraries to maps
Abstracts of up to 200 words should be sent to the dedicated email account [email protected] by Monday, 25th of September 2017. Please include personal and contact details (including academic affiliation), paper title, abstract, and A-V requirements.
We welcome paper proposals for papers of 20 minutes’ length across four sessions from historical, literary, archaeological, art historical and interdisciplinary angles.
The sessions will be entitled:
1. Ethiopia: From Aksum to Lalibela
2. The Early Solomonic period: The Age of Ethiopian expansion
3. Making Prester John: Medieval European conceptions of Ethiopia
4. Mapping the (physical) End of the World: Ethiopia and medieval maps
Possible topics could include (but are not limited to):
• Any topic of Aksum, Zagwe and early Solomonic history
• Muslims, Christians, Jews: Religious conflict, context and exchange in medieval Ethiopia
• European sources on Ethiopia: the ‘Ethiopian’ Prester John and beyond
• Ethiopia in medieval maps
Abstracts of up to 200 words should be sent to the organiser by Monday, 5 September 2016. Please include personal and contact details (including academic affiliation), paper title, abstract, and A-V requirements.
This panel invited researchers from any discipline working on Ethiopia to point out gaps in the academic record they wish would be (or would already long have been) filled by members of other disciplines, with their different methods and instrumentarium. It was also intended as a laboratory of ideas in which vexing gaps in the record, the lacuna of knowledge in the field that somebody else (maybe!) could fill, should be dragged out into the open. By probing the boundaries between disciplines and the limits they impose on their practitioners, new hypotheses and new cooperations might emerge in the future.
Presenters were thus invited to report how their specific work ran up against a lack of knowledge or understanding they themselves felt unable to overcome. Ideally, this panel provided inspiration for future research, giving hints, suggesting topics, and tracing potential connections benefiting the field as a whole.