Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean: Trade, Crusade and Religion amongst Latins, Greeks and Muslims, 1204-1453

A conference organised by Dr. Nikolaos Chrissis and Michael Carr, under the auspices of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (SSCLE): with the sponsorship of the Department of History of Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (SPHS). The conference will be dedicated in memory of Konstantinos Ikonomopoulos, student of the Hellenic Institute and the History Department of Royal Holloway (1980-2009).

The conference will explore new aspects of the interaction between Byzantine Greeks, Latins and Turks in the period between the Fourth Crusade (1204) and the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It will combine the participants' original research on crusading in the Greek East in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the latest advances in Byzantine and Crusade historiography. A broad range of themes will be explored, including the implementation and evolution of the crusade in the area, the religious landscape and political balance of a land shared by Orthodox Greeks, Catholic Latins and Muslim Turks, and the role of trade in fostering closer contact between the three sides.

The conference aims to bring together established academics and doctoral/postdoctoral researchers, as well as to provide an academic forum on numerous aspects of the history of Greece and the Aegean from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, offering the opportunity for scholars from the various related disciplines to partake in the discussion. The format of the sessions will reflect this. Each session will consist of two 30-minute papers, pairing one established academic with an emerging scholar, and an additional 30 minutes for discussion. It is hoped that this will be a stimulus for more active collaboration in terms of both findings and methodology. Crusade, Byzantine and Ottoman studies have been advancing in leaps in recent years, but specialists in each field are often unaware of the advances in the others. Greece and the Aegean from the 13th to the 15th century is an area where these fields converge, and attempts at interpreting this world of extreme fragmentation can only be successful through such collaborative approaches.

The conference has been planned to coincide with the period immediately prior to the Leeds International Medieval Congress (12-15 July 2010), in order to facilitate participation of scholars, particularly from abroad, who wish to combine the two events.

There is no registration fee, but those who wish to attend should register with Michael Carr or Nikolaos Chrissis (M.Carr@rhul.ac.uk, N.Chrissis@rhul.ac.uk).

Provisional programme as follows.

Provisional Programme

Institute of Historical Research, London – Friday 9 July 2010, 10:00-18:30

Session 1: The Latin Empire between East and West

Nikolaos Chrissis (Royal Holloway): New Frontiers: Frankish Greece and the development of the Crusade in the early 13th century

Bernard Hamilton (University of Nottingham): The Latin Empire and western contacts with Asia

Session 2: Byzantine reactions to the Latins

Teresa Shawcross (Trinity Hall, Cambridge): After the Fourth Crusade: Michael Choniates, Orthodoxy and the defence of local interests

Judith Ryder (Wolfson College, Oxford): Demetrius Kydones’ “History of the Crusades”: reality or rhetoric?

Lunch

Session 3: Latins between Greeks and Turks in the fourteenth century

Mike Carr (Royal Holloway): Trade or Crusade? The Zaccaria of Chios and Crusades against the Turks, 1300-1345

Peter Lock (York St John University): Sanudo, Turks, Greeks and Latins in the fourteenth century

Session 4: Turkish Response to Mongols, Greeks and Latins

Anthony Luttrell: Mongols, Turks, Greeks and Latins: Timur’s invasion of Anatolia

Dimitris Kastritsis (University of St. Andrews): Internal factions and political dynamics affecting early Ottoman policy toward the Christian world (1354-1453)

Concluding Comments

For more information and updates, please contact the organisers, or visit our website:

http://www.rhul.ac.uk/History/Research/Frankish-Greece/