Daria Safronova, M.A.

Provisional title: ‘Assemblies in the Kingdom of León, cc. 900–1100’

In the early Middle Ages, assemblies played a key role in politics, legal practice, and religious life, yet most extant sources only briefly touch on their modus operandi. Moreover, their institutional boundaries were vague as they were generally determined by unwritten rules, rather than formal regulations. For these reasons, gatherings of that time have attracted significantly less scholarly attention than relatively more formalized, representative ones, which started to emerge only from the twelfth century onwards. This seems to be particularly true of assemblies in the tenth- and eleventh-centuries kingdom of León, which are the subject of the present dissertation. In scholarship, they have long been overshadowed by the Leonese Cortes which first gathered in 1188. However, in the preceding period, assemblies did exist, albeit as a flexible and informal phenomenon. Being summoned for one purpose, they could be transformed to serve another as they unfolded. In the kingdom of León, any attempt to differentiate between church councils, political and judicial gatherings at least up to the last quarter of the eleventh century would mean extrapolating a later institutional framework to them. Yet this is how they have been mostly studied so far, and therefore, our knowledge of this subject is scattered over ecclesiastical, political, and legal history. This project aims to develop a more holistic approach to Leonese assemblies by drawing on the recent developments in the history of literacy, dispute settlement studies, and the ‘new constitutional history.’ The dissertation will take an expansive view of assemblies by considering them simply as occasions when people convened for a specific purpose. It sets out to explore their patterns of communication, decision-making processes, and power dynamics.

Early medieval history of northern Iberia, with a focus on:

• literacy and communication
• dispute settlement and Visigothic law
• supplication and mediation

Aufsätze

‘Fal'shivye gramoty v leonskoj pravovoj praktike X–XI vekov’ [‘Forged charters in legal practice of the kingdom of León (tenth and eleventh centuries)’], in Istoriya: perevodit', ponimat', ocenivat' (k yubileyu M.A. Yusima) [History: Translating, understanding, evaluating (in honour of Mark A. Yusim], ed. Pavel Uvarov (Moscow, 2021), 121–140.

‘Ustnaya rech' v pravovoj i dokumental'noj praktike Leonskogo korolevstva X–XI vekov’ [‘Oral speech in legal and documentary practice in the kingdom of León (tenth and eleventh centuries)’], Dialog so vremenem [Dialogue with time] vol. 72, № 2 (2020): 124–137.

‘Dokumenty na assambleyah v Leonskom korolevstve X–XI vekov’ [‘Documents and assemblies in the kingdom of León (tenth and eleventh centuries)’], Srednie veka [Middle Ages] vol. 79, №2 (2018): 86–106.

‘Liber Iudiciorum v leonskih dokumentah X–XI vekov’ [Liber Iudiciorum and the Leonese charters of the tenth and eleventh centuries], Srednie Veka [Middle Ages] vol. 78, № 1–2 (2017): 93–114.

‘Cerkovnye sobory v Leonskom korolevstve X– nachala XII vekov’ [‘Ecclesiastical assemblies in the kingdom of León (tenth to early twelfth centuries)’], in Rossiya i Ispaniya: politika, ekonomika, kul'tura [Russia and Spain: politics, economy, and culture], ed. Olga V. Volosyuk et al. (Moscow, 2017), 25–30.

‘Problema interpretacii rannesrednevekovyh assamblej Leonskogo korolevstva’ [Early medieval assemblies in the kingdom of León: The problem of interpretation], History: Journal of education and science vol. 8, № 52 (2016).

Rezensionen

Review of Wendy Davies, Windows on Justice in Northern Iberia, 800–1000 (Oxford–New York, 2016), Srednie veka [Middle Ages] vol. 79, № 1 (2018): 203–209.

‘Supplicating the King of León in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,’ Leeds International Medieval Congress (4–7 July 2022), online.

‘Oral Speech in Legal Practice in Northern Iberia, cc. 900–1100’ (winner of the Nancy F. Marino Prize), International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, 9–14 May 2022), online.

‘Visigothic Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Northern Iberia, c. 900–1100,’ Leeds International Medieval Congress (5–9 July 2021), online.

‘Visigothic Law and Charters in Northern Iberia, cc. 900–1100,’ Comparative Legal History Workshop ‘Law in Transmission: The Movement of Practices, Texts and Concepts across Time and Space, c. 400–1500,’ University of St Andrews (Scotland, 5–7 May 2021), online.

‘Using and Detecting Forged Charters in Northern Iberia, cc. 900–1100,’ Leeds International Medieval Congress (1–4 July 2019).

‘Assemblies and the Idea of Consultation in the Kingdom of León, cc. 900–1100,’ the 69th ICHRPI conference ‘Powers, Debates, Norms’ (Orléans–Paris, 5–8 September 2017).