• When? 3-5 September, 2025
• Where? University of Vienna — Alte Kapelle (Hof 1), hybrid format (on-site & online)
• Language? English
• How? Please send a short email to lale.tuever@univie.ac.at if you’d like to register for the event. The deadline for registration is August 20, 2025. 

 

10:00 - 10:30  Arrival and Registration

10:30 - 11:15   Welcome and Keynote Lecture

 

• Tara Andrews | University of Vienna
  Facts About Claims About Facts: Historical Data in the RELEVEN Project

 

Coffee Break

11:30 - 13:00   First Session

Chair and Respondent: Georg Vogeler | University of Graz

 

• Kevin Stadler and Lukas Plank | Austrian Academy of Sciences
  Towards Declarative Linked Data Backends: Generating the RELEVEN Graph API from RDF Path Expressions

  Abstract — The RELEVEN project implements a heavily reified CIDOC-CRM based knowledge graph to represent historical claims with full contextual provenance. Exposing such complex semantic data to consuming applications presents significant technical challenges. The paper addresses these challenges by proposing a model-driven approach for building REST APIs on top of SPARQL endpoints by combining RDFProxy — a Python library for mapping SPARQL query results to Pydantic models — with WissKAS, a command-line tool capable of automatically generating RDFProxy endpoints from a declarative RDF path expression language.

 

 

• Elisabetta Magnanti | University of Vienna 
  Information-Theoretic Metrics for Networks of Historical Writing

  Abstract — This paper examines the cross-Channel transmission of eleven entries from the so-called Annals of Rouen, tracing their dissemination and reception within Norman and English historiographical traditions between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Using information-theoretic metrics—specifically a Deviation Rate derived from Shannon entropy and Jensen–Shannon divergence—it analyses textual relationships across a corpus of Norman sources (including the Annals of Saint Évroult and the Annals of Jumièges) and Anglo-Latin compilations (the E- and F-texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, and the Waverley Annals). The study demonstrates that entropy-based models can yield quantifiable insights into the dynamics of textual transmission, while also establishing a methodological framework that integrates computational analysis with traditional philological enquiry.

 

Lunch

14:00 - 15:30   Second Session

Chair and Respondent: Tara Andrews | University of Vienna

 

• Katalin Prajda | University of Vienna
  Identities in Eleventh Century Venice

  Abstract — This paper aims to make a small-scale contribution to one of the metanarratives of eleventh century Italian historiography, namely, the formation of collective civic identity. Venice serves as a case study to evaluate the prevailing historiographical thesis. In doing so, the paper differentiates between self-identity and identity assigned by third parties to examine the extent to which individuals identified themselves or were identified by others as belonging to a specific social group. The analysis draws on two text corpora containing three hundred sixty notarial acts issued in Venetian territory.

 

 

• Cristina Andenna | Saarland University
  Women in Power: Agency, Strategies and Networks in Norman Italy

  Abstract — In 11th-century Norman Italy, women played important political roles through their family networks in order to consolidate their husbands' power. This paper will focus on the fascinating case of Sichelgaita, a Lombard princess who married Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke of Apulia and Calabria. With the support of her noble networks and aid from monasteries close to her Lombard family, Sichelgaita became a key figure in Robert's politics during the Norman conquest of southern Italy, as well as during the consolidation of the conquerors' power. Following her husband's death, she selected her collaborators and used these networks to defend her son's controversial inheritance, enabling him to retain control of the ducal territory he had inherited.

 

Coffee Break

16:00 - 17:30   Third Session

Chair and Respondent: Andy Hilkens | University of Vienna

 

• Ephrem A. Ishac | Austrian Academy of Sciences
  Mapping Connections in Early Medieval Syriac Colophons

  Abstract — This paper demonstrates how the detailed information found in Syriac manuscript colophons, or “Syriac Colophonology,” can be used to map and visualize the cultural, intellectual, and geographical networks of the early medieval Syriac-Armenian world, with a particular focus on the 11th century. Drawing on a series of case studies from the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate Library, the paper shows how these unique paratextual notes—which often function as short chronicles—provide a crucial counter-history to official narratives. By analyzing the data within these colophons, we identify a complex web of connections centered on the region of Melitene during the 11th century. The analysis explores several forms of mapping: geographical and temporal movements of manuscripts and people; personal and institutional relationships; inter-communal exchange with other traditions like the Armenian community; and the intellectual lineage of the texts themselves. The analysis also uncovers the often-overlooked but vital role of women as scribes, readers, and donors, thereby reconstructing a more inclusive historical record. Finally, the paper argues that a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, integrating textual analysis with digital humanities tools, is necessary to fully solve the puzzles of Syriac colophons and connect them with parallel traditions, such as in the rich Armenian manuscript tradition.

 

 

• Lewis Read | University of Vienna
  Armenian Legal and Fiscal Practice after Manzikert: The Case of a Colophon from (post) Byzantine Taron

  Abstract — In 1079 CE a Greek manuscript was translated into Armenian in the Byzantine theme of Taron at the behest of Čortuanel Mamikonean. The colophon of the now lost Armenian text tells us that, after its translation, the manuscript was donated to the monastery of the Holy Apostles near Mush in Taron, where it took on the function of a legal document, witnessing and confirming the transfer of the village of Berdak, just south of Theodosioupolis/Karin, along with its estates, into the possession of the monastery. In the framework of an ongoing scholarly reassessment of the nature of Armeno-Byzantine relations in the closing decades of the eleventh century, this paper seeks to frame this property donation as a localised expression of a profoundly Byzantine fiscal and legal environment which continued to set markers of due diligence for the management, transfer, and retention of Armenian monastic and secular property. In doing so, this paper will draw attention to a neglected case of shared praxis which continued to condition Armeno-Byzantine relations in the fractious decade following the battle of Manzikert and highlight that whilst many Armenians undoubtedly turned away from the Empire at the close of the eleventh century, for many other Armenians, Byzantine modes of practice continued to condition daily life.

 

10:00 - 11:30   Fourth Session

Chair and Respondent: James Baillie | Austrian Academy of Sciences

 

• Habib Ibrahim | University of Tübingen
  Towards a Fully Automated Greco-Arabic Dictionary of the Eleventh-Century Antiochian Translations

  Abstract — How did medieval cultures share ideas and build shared intellectual legacies? The 11th-century Antioch translation movement marked an important phase of cultural exchange between Greek and Arabic traditions, following the Abbasid translation movement. While the Abbasids focused on science and philosophy, Antioch's translators enhanced theology, hagiography, and everyday vocabulary, shaping intellectual and religious life. The project “Greco-Arabic Dictionary of the Eleventh-Century Antiochian Translations” aims to reveal and keep this legacy alive, showing how civilizations thrived through collaboration over time, and to develop a fully automated bilingual dictionary. Leveraging cutting-edge digital tools—Agapet (an HTR model for Christian Arabic manuscripts), GREgORI:AR (for parsing texts), and Anthony (a multilingual alignment software), the project will make thousands of previously unstudied translations from the Antioch movement accessible. These texts will be dynamically integrated into an online database, offering real-time updates and fostering global scholarship. The project will increase the published corpus from 500 to 1,000 texts and grow the total word count from about 500,000 to 3.5 million. By combining advanced technology with thorough scholarship, the project aims to redefine the study of Greek-Arabic translations and their cultural importance. Initially focusing on 11th-century texts, this effort will lay the groundwork for future research by expanding coverage to include 15% of the Greek corpus, such as texts from the 18th century.

 

 

• Sandro Nikolaishvili | University of Southern Denmark
  From Constantinople to Gelati Monastery: The Survival of Ioannes Xiphilinos' Imperial Menologion

  Abstract — This talk traces the journey of Ioannes Xiphilinos’ Imperial Menologion from Constantinople to the Gelati Monastery in Georgia, examining the historical, literary, and cultural circumstances that ensured its survival in Georgian translation despite the loss of the Greek original. By situating Xiphilinos’ work as a continuation of Symeon Metaphrastes’ Menologion, I address questions of dating and authorship. Furthermore, I propose three possible locations from which the Menologion could have traveled to Georgia: the Monastery of Peribleptos (Triantafyllou) in Constantinople, the Monastery of Iviron (Athos), and the imperial palace itself. Special attention is given to figures who may have facilitated its transmission, including Empress Maria of Alania and the theologian-translator Arsen of Iqalto, as well as to the broader Georgian engagement with the metaphrastic tradition through the work of Euthymios the Athonite and Theophilos the Hieromonk. Through these interconnected figures and institutions, the paper reconstructs the networks that preserved and transmitted Xiphilinos’ Menologion, highlighting its place as the last imperial Menologion dedicated to an emperor and its enduring significance in the shared literary heritage of Byzantium and Georgia.

 

Coffee Break

12:00 - 13:30   Fifth Session

Chair and Respondent: Baukje van den Berg | Central European University

 

• Niels Gaul | University of Edinburgh (online)
  School and Regional Network in Constantinople and Across the Empire during the Eleventh Century

  Abstract — Learned networks were a key factor to imperial cohesion in the eleventh century, possibly at least initially in competition with other means such as eunuchism. The paper examines such networks in three steps: starting from the learning available in the provinces it moves to the social background of those students moving to the imperial centre, before it analyses the means by which such moves were facilitated. The conclusion highlights challenges to the cohesion thus achieved as they emerged over the eleventh century and subsequently.

 

Lunch

14:30 - 16:00   Sixth Session

Chair and Respondent: Johannes Preiser-Kapeller | Austrian Academy of Sciences

 

• Federico Alpi | Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII, Bologna; Università degli Studi di Firenze
  Armenian Chalcedonian(s) in the Letters of Grigor Magistros Pahlawuni: An Overview

  Abstract — This paper examines four letters written by the Armenian scholar and statesman Grigor Magistros Pahlawuni (ca. 990–1058) to his Chalcedonian Armenian son-in-law, the prince Tʽoṙnik Mamikonean, within the broader context of 11th-century Armenian-Byzantine relations. While the letters – devoted to topics such as fish, trees, and even church architecture – are not overtly doctrinal, they contain subtle allusions to contested theological and liturgical issues, including fasting practices, the consumption of fish, and the use of specific oils in religious rites. The analysis situates these exchanges within a period of intense political and ecclesiastical change following the Byzantine annexation of Ani (1045), highlighting Grigor’s openness to dialogue across confessional lines, tempered by his firm commitment to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Through literary sophistication rooted in Byzantine epistolography, the letters reveal both the cultural interconnectedness of the Armenian elite with Byzantine, Iranian, and other neighbouring traditions, and the nuanced interplay of personal, political, and religious concerns. This study underscores the layered meanings in Grigor’s correspondence and its value for understanding Armenian Chalcedonian identity and inter-confessional discourse in the medieval Caucasus.

 

 

• Aleksandar Anđelović | University of Vienna
  Mapping a Mindset: The Hierarchy of Place and Cultural Space in the Letters of Michael Psellos

  Abstract — This paper explores Michael Psellos’ “geographical thinking” through his complete epistolary corpus, newly unified in Stratis Papaioannou’s 2019 edition. Bringing together over 500 letters to more than 150 recipients, this edition enables us to see patterns of spatial thinking previously obscured by the letters’ dispersal. Psellos’ correspondence reveals a hierarchical vision of the Byzantine world built around three categories: Constantinople as the unquestioned political, spiritual, and rhetorical center; the pragmatic periphery of monasteries, estates, and provincial towns, valued for administrative utility yet often appearing as economic burden; and cultural and symbolic geographies, mainly of classical Greece, evoked for their prestige yet marked by perceived decline. The letters show Psellos negotiating property disputes, securing tax exemptions, and cultivating relationships with provincial officials while often critiquing local poverty and “barbarian” traits. Praise was largely reserved for educated elites who reflected Constantinopolitan ideals of paideia. By integrating administrative realities with cultural memory, Psellos constructed a rhetorical map that reinforced his own elite identity. These letters offer a rare and textured view of how an eleventh-century Byzantine intellectual spatially percieved his world. This paper will discuss how these dynamics emerge from Psellos’ correspondence and what they reveal about Byzantine perceptions of space and identity.

 

Coffee Break

16:30 - 18:00   Seventh Session

Chair and Respondent: Ekaterini Mitsiou | University of Vienna

 

• Tia Kolbaba | Rutgers University
  From Refutation to Ridicule: Changes in Anti-Heretical Literature in the Eleventh-Century East Roman Empire

  Abstract — Traditional scholarship divides East Roman imperial history into early (c. 600-850), middle (c. 850-1050), Komnenian (1081-1204), and Palaiologan (1261-1453) periods. This paper explores one aspect of the transition between the middle and Komnenian periods: namely, a striking change in the tone and content of East Roman anti-heretical texts, whether they are concerned with Armenians, Latins, or other “others.” What precisely happened in the eleventh century? Among other things, a simultaneous increase in the circulation of people, goods, and ideas throughout the Mediterranean led to a backlash, as some East Romans hated and feared the uncertainties of a rapidly changing world. This backlash was characterized by attempts to rebuild old boundaries or erect new ones—attempts that spawned a new kind of heresiological literature in the later 11th century. While reasoned, albeit polemical, refutations of heresies never disappeared, catalogues of all the heresies there ever were reappeared after centuries of absence, and a new type of puerile polemic filled with ridiculous stories and scurrilous accusations emerged. Some writers strove mightily to reinforce the walls between “us” and “them” by exaggerating or even inventing religious and ethnic differences. Texts by Michael Keroularios and Euthymios of the Peribleptos, for example, eschew intellectual refutations of heresy to claim instead that the Latins and Armenians are not only deluded but polluted, not only barbarous but impervious to civilization. The virulence of this polemic reflects a rising nativism and perhaps a crisis of confidence in some East Roman ecclesiastical circles.

 

 

• Rustam Shukurov | Austrian Academy of Sciences
  The Naturalisation of Muslims during the Byzantine Reconquista of the East and Especially in the Eleventh Century

  Abstract — This paper examines the gradual “humanisation” of Byzantine practices towards Muslims between the ninth and eleventh centuries, situating these shifts within both legal thought and imperial policy. In Byzantine dogmatic and juridical frameworks, Islam was classified as a form of paganism (ἄπιστοι), requiring converts to anathematise their God and Prophet and undergo baptism. Yet from the ninth century onwards, the rigid eschatological hostility towards Islam began to soften, without altering its dogmatic classification. Initially expressed in the institutionalisation of regular mass prisoner exchanges, this shift expanded in the tenth century to include the toleration of Muslim populations in newly conquered territories, as at Malatya (934) and Tarsus (965). By the eleventh century, evidence from bilingual Arabo-Byzantine seals and Arabic sources reveals Muslim appointees to military and civil offices. Under Alexios I Komnenos, captured Muslim children were no longer enslaved but raised as free persons in imperial, ecclesiastical, and private orphanages, educated in Greek literacy and Christian doctrine. This transformation is analysed through a wide range of sources—narrative, legal, sigillographic, and Arabic—against the background of the Byzantine legal principle that inhumane (ἀφιλάνθρωπος) laws should be applied humanely (φιλάνθρωπος). These developments did not conform to standard canonical prescriptions, revealing a distinctive Byzantine capacity to preserve the integrity of legal tradition while departing from it in practice when deemed inhumane. The paper argues that the eleventh century marked the apex of a two-century process in which pragmatic needs, diplomatic realities, and philanthropic ideals converged, reshaping the imperial treatment of Muslims and offering a more nuanced understanding of Byzantine civilisation’s flexibility towards religious outsiders.

 

10:00 - 11:30   Eight Session

Chair and Respondent: Ivan Petrov | University of Vienna

 

• Monica White | University of Nottingham
  The Byzantine Building Blocks of the Eleventh-Century Rus Church: Pilgrims, Bishops, Icons and Relics

  Abstract — During the eleventh century, Rus enjoyed its first unbroken period of official Christianity, as the culture and structures of the Byzantine church became established. Most studies of this process have focused on the growth and interactions of institutions, yet many of the trappings of eastern Christianity were transported, both physically and conceptually, by a stready stream of individuals who travelled between Byzantium and Rus on church business. This paper will examine some of the groups who undertook this arduous journey and how they contributed to contributed to the growth of Christian culture in Rus.

 

 

• Christian Raffensperger | Wittenberg University
  Kyivan Manuscript Illumination: At the Nexus of the Christian World

  Abstract — Rusian art, like its history, has often been pigeon-holed into a strict model bracketed by the path from the Varangians to the Greeks and entirely within the Byzantine Commonwealth. This is so much the case that work clearly done in Kyiv, such as the miniatures of the Gertrude Psalter, are not included in the book Russian Illuminated Manuscripts as they do not fit easily into the framework required. The current paper builds on existing work by myself and others which has challenged the dominant paradigm to situate Rusian art and especially manuscript culture more broadly in a European perspective. In particular, this paper will focus on one particular motif, that of the coronation of the ruler by Christ. An example of such an image occurs in the Gertrude Psalter, but there are examples from Byzantium and the German Empire as well. The paper will work through the various iterations of this image in the late tenth and eleventh centuries to see the similarities and differences and to discuss routes of transmission and appropriation – the better to accurately situate Rus in a wider medieval Europe.

 

Coffee Break

12:00 - 13:30   Ninth Session

Chair and Respondent: Daniel Ziemann | Central European University

 

• Przemysław Wiszewski | University of Wrocław
  Imperial Co-operator or Independent Ruler? Christian Political Ideas and Dialogue between Imperial and Polish Elites during the 11th Century

  Abstract — The acceptance of a political order is determined not only by the possession of the right to use violence to establish and/or stabilise a certain form of social organisation. Equally important are the narratives that legitimise or contest this right. Particularly important are those narratives that circulate among a group of people who decide on support for or opposition to the holder of the right to violence, which is crucial for maintaining political order. This rule applies both today and in the Middle Ages, although changes have affected the way narratives are transmitted and the social scope of the groups that create and overthrow temporary rulers. Consistency between the behaviour of those in power and the narrative justifying and describing the exercise of power was a natural phenomenon in societies with established patterns of communicating messages about power. Traditional forms of communication meant the transmission of content affirming values shared by communities through the use of repetitive and easily recognisable actors’ behaviours and sequences of signs. Variations in the interpretation of content have always been possible for people living in the same culture, but their impact on the behaviour of social groups was not significant. However, the moment of cultural change was different, when new behaviours and sign systems could refer to new values and serve to translate traditional norms of social life into the symbolic language of the new culture. The situation was further complicated when these messages were decoded by groups familiar with the new cultural codes being introduced, but with only a rough understanding of the functioning of the society undergoing acculturation. A classic example of this loop of ambiguity and misunderstanding is the attempt to interpret traditional Slavic beliefs with the help of 10th-11th century chroniclers living in the Empire. In this presentation, I would like to look at the issue of the construction of the idea of power by the Piasts in the 11th century through the prism of communication rooted in the culture of communicating groups. To this end, I will focus on the interpretation of the meeting in the year 1000 between Emperor Otto III and Bolesław I Chrobry, on the consequences of this event for Saxon narratives about the power of the Piasts and for the actual exercise of this power by Bolesław. Next, I will analyse the echoes of this event in the narratives alive among the political elite of Poland in the second half of the 11th and early 12th centuries.

 

 

• Márton Rózsa | University of Vienna
  Interregional Movement and Power in the Eleventh Century: A Central European Context

  Abstract — The eleventh century was a period of political transformation in Central Europe due to the ongoing Christianisation. The political situation influenced the spatial movement of individuals within the local polities and throughout the region. The connection between politics and spatial movement in eleventh century Central Europe has long been studied. However, previous analyses were conducted on a national scope or with a focus on specific types of journeys (i.e. pilgrimage, embassies, etc.). Addressing the lack of a regional perspective in the subject, this paper examines the local sovereigns’ control over interregional journeys in Central Europe from 1025 to 1095. The analysis focuses on four factors: the nature of the interregional travels, the proponents of the journeys, the control methods of local rulers, and the monarchs’ benefits from managing or influencing other individuals’ spatial movement. With these aspects, the paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the politics of Central Europe in the “short” eleventh century.

 

13:30 - 14:00   Closing Remarks