Rethinking the Medieval Frontier

Description

Intended to use medieval evidence and case studies as material for a comparative examination of the geographical, political and ideological spaces where things meet in our world and the past, the network will be looking for historical perspectives on a number of very current questions, such as:

Who is allowed across borders, by whom and why?

How well has such control worked, and what has happened when it did or didn’t?

How do we define where borders and frontier spaces are, and who gets to do the definition?

Are frontiers the edge of something bigger, or a phenomenon in their own right which deserves recognition as something distinct?

To tackle these questions and others like them, participants will be coming to Leeds from Exeter, Canterbury, Swansea, Birmingham, Lancaster and further afield too.