Crossing Boundaries? ​Trade and Connections on the Medieval Mediterranean

10th - 12th April, 2019

Woolf Institute, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0UB

The conference, Crossing Boundaries? Trade and Connections on the Medieval Mediterranean, will be held between 10 and 12 April 2019 at the Woolf Institute.

Organised by Dr Mike Carr (University of Edinburgh) and Jessica Tearney-Pearce (University of Cambridge & Woolf Institute), this conference will highlight the lives of people involved in maritime mercantile activity in the medieval Mediterranean and the worlds which they occupied, especially as these relate to boundaries in the context of cross-cultural and inter-confessional exchanges. Scholarly debates presuppose that the medieval Mediterranean was a sea of boundaries: boundaries between religions, boundaries between cultures, and boundaries between rival powers. Although obstacles preventing communication and connection across the Sea certainly existed in this period, it is difficult to clearly define Mediterranean 'boundaries' or to identify where they lay, if at all. States and institutions, for example, certainly aimed to construct boundaries through the regulation of contact and exchange, but with the absence of any pan-Mediterranean maritime law, or the ability to effectively police the Sea, this was never fully achieved. Particular attention will be paid to merchants and trade as connectors of peoples between whom boundaries and obstacles preventing communication and connection can be perceived.

For further details, visit the dedicated website here.

Please Note: The entry date for this conference has now passed.



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