Laury Sarti (University of Bonn), The Frankish Kingdom and the Eastern Empire: Rethinking Their Interconnections from a Medieval Perspective. Co-sponsored by the Committee on Medieval Studies and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art & Culture at Hellenic College of the Holy Cross. This talk will take place on the Zoom meeting platform; please click here to register.
How did the Byzantines perceive the Franks since the end of Antiquity, and to what extent did they recognize Frankish imperial claims at the time of Charlemagne? This lecture reassesses the sources to challenge the traditional view of general Byzantine superiority, focusing on contemporary perspectives. It examines the relationship and connections between the Franks and the empire from the Merovingian period, and how these relations evolved over time. It does so by employing three approaches: the study of connectivity, exploring interactions and infrastructures; the study of networking, tracing the processes and outcomes of these interactions; and entanglement, analyzing intersecting socio-political factors. The evidence shows that Charlemagne’s recognition in 812 followed standard imperial protocols, that the dual imperial order remained conceptually viable, and that the Franks retained ties to imperial structures while gradually asserting autonomy. Elite-level networks—embassies, marriage proposals, and Greek learning—sustained a limited but enduring imperial connection, which only weakened by the Ottonian period.
LOCATION: STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260227T170000Z DTEND:20260227T183000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR