The Norman Conquest of North Africa

Recent research has taken me far from Normandy to much sunnier climes in my pursuit of understanding the relationship between landscape, people (for that read Normans) and history writing. It is not yet clear whether I have embarked on a hunt for the Questing Beast, or whether my Snark will turn out to be a Boojum, but for the moment, the project at least has the appearance of scholarly endeavour, rather than antiquarian nonsense. All this is a long-winded way of saying that on Monday I went to Oxford to hear about the Normans in North Africa given by the redoubtable Alex Metcalfe from Lancaster. I confess that I do not know much about the Normans in North Africa. I was vaguely aware that they went there and this might have something to do with Sicily, so I was keen to attend.

IMC Leeds 2010 report

After a couple of nights in Whitley Bay with my sister’s family, it was on to Leeds for the annual International Medieval Congress. This was, in fact, the ninth congress I’d attended, which makes me feel rather old. This year can be summed up simply as ‘good papers, good beer and good company’.

IMS Paris 2009 symposium report

I have been in writing purdah in preparation for Battle at the end of the month, so this post is rather late in they day. For what it is worth, here are my thoughts on the International Medieval Society’s, Paris annual symposium.

Thinking about space (and time) in chronicles

In my last post I commented on how the problems faced by relativists trying to show time and space in representations of black holes seemed similar to the difficulties faced by historians trying to talk about representations of space in our sources. A recent post by Jonathan Jarrett has also raised some of these questions – is this picture of Toledo in council season a depiction of the council or the relationship between Toledo and its territories? And who is in the tents?

Gesta expands her (event) horizons

Usually in the vacations I go to a conference or workshop. Easter 2009 was no exception to this rule, but instead of going to something medieval, I found myself in a corner of BritGrav 2009 at Cardiff – a meeting of those people who devote themselves to the study of gravitation, general relativity and other similar things. I was, of course, there with Reivers in case anyone thinks I’m planning a radical career change.