Category: News

All network members and associates will be proud to present and discuss their findings from the last two years at Leeds International Medieval Congress on Tuesday 2nd July, when we are hosting four linked sessions, all under the banner of “Noblesse oblige?: Intermediate Élites and the Common Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia”.

Conflicto, rebelión y revuelta social en la Baja Edad Media. Las Coronas de Aragón y Castilla (siglos XIII-XV) (CORE) is a joint research group now affiliated to the Noblesse Oblige? project.

At the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2023, we were delighted to have Maximilian Lau (Co-Investigator) and network participants Adam Simmons, Angus Russell, and Amira Bennison in conversation about the progress and aims of the research network, moderated by Gregory Lippiatt (Principal Investigator).

The first and third Noblesse Oblige? conference was held at St Cross/Pusey House, University of Oxford, between the 25th and 27th May 2023. This event brought together fifteen scholars from around the world to discuss the role of non-royal élites in Japan, China, India, Russia, Syria, the Eastern Roman empire, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, England, and France. In addition to this incredible subject breadth, these scholars came from as far afield as Vancouver and Tokyo, and it was heartening to see a broad range of attendees from around the UK as well. We had a good number of associate members, our supervisory board members, and much interest from wider histories faculties. More than one senior professor told us they would merely put their head around the door for a paper and then ended up staying all day, which we take as a massive vote of confidence in the project, and in the calibre of our speakers!

The Noblesse Oblige? conference programme is now finalised, and there are limited spaces for other attendees to join us in Oxford between the 25th and 27th May.

We believe that this network should continue to grow, and especially to incorporate parts of the world and viewpoint beyond the already broad specialities of our network members. Therefore we would like to offer associate membership to further schools.

We are delighted to have our network panel accepted for the International Medieval Congress 2023 at the University of Leeds. Please join us on 3rd July 2023 at 19h (room TBA), where Dr Gregory Lippiatt (University of Exeter) will chair a session with Prof. Amira K. Bennison (University of Cambridge), Dr Maximilian Lau (University of Oxford), Mr Angus Russell (University of Cambridge), and Dr Adam Simmons (Nottingham Trent University) to discuss the aims, methods, and challenges of the network and transnational history in the Middle Ages.

We are very excited to announce our network conference at St Cross College-Pusey House in Oxford on 25-27th May. This will bring together our two working groups and present the case study findings developed from our participants’ research and the discussions in the webinar meetings.

In order to kick off our research network, we held a series of webinar workshops on 12–13th September and 12–13th December 2022. These were organised around our two working group themes: ‘Barons and the Public Good in a Transnational Context’ and ‘Minority Élites and Government in a Transnational Context’.