The International Medieval Congress in Leeds 2018

‘Big’ is the first word that comes to mind when describing the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. As a first-time participant the mere size of the event was overwhelming! Over 2000 medievalists joined together in the first week of July to discuss their new and ongoing research. Every single person walking around at the congress has his or her own specialism and research they are involved in. With each day featuring four of five two-hour sessions, there was every option to completely immerse oneself in everything medieval. As with a music festival, the first day feels like you should see a show in every single timeslot, only to realise halfway through the second day that it is okay to skip a few and just relax!

However, relaxing might be easier said than done. All the incredible scholars presenting their research are the same people you meet during breakfast, at lunch and have conversations with at the dinner table. Without knowing it, you might very well have been discussing the weather with one of your heroes. I can truthfully say that as a first-timer, I was constantly starstruck.

It was in this incredible environment that I presented my own research, the slides of which can be accessed here. While it is not directly related to the Defining Europe project, it shows how ideas about the world, especially the East, have been adopted in heroic literature. Representations of the world taken from encyclopaedic texts found their way into Arthurian romances and seemingly magical, fantastical adventures turn out to perhaps be more accurate than originally thought. Ideas about the geography of the world definitely did not only circulate in a scholarly environment.

Post by Kiki Calis