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CONFERENCE: OBJECTS OF LAW IN THE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN WORLDS, UNIVERSITÄT BERN, 29-30 AUGUST 2024


CONFERENCE

OBJECTS OF LAW IN THE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN WORLDS

INSTITUT FÜR KUNSTGESCHICHTE, UNIVERSITÄT BERN, MITTELSTRASSE 43, 3012 BERN, ROOM 120

29-30 AUGUST 2024

The international conference “Objects of Law in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds” proposes to reflect on the artistic practices that shaped the materiality, iconography, and texts of legal objects in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. What forms did these objects take? How did they confer authenticity and legal authority? What education and knowledge are evident in the objects? The conference seeks an interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars from art history, legal history, history, archaeology, and related disciplines who engage with legal objects.

Organized by Corinne Mühlemann (University of Bern) and Fatima Quraishi (University of California, Riverside).

For registration, please contact: janina.ammon@unibe.ch
The conference will be held in person.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Thursday 29 August 2024

9:00-9:30: ARRIVAL | COFFEE

9:30-10.15: Introduction by Fatima Quraishi and Corinne Mühlemann

PANEL 1 | FORMATIONS OF AUTHORITY

10:30-12:00
Moderated by Omar Anchassi, University of Bern, SNSF Project “Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies”

  • Zahir Bhalloo (University of Hamburg), Social and Spatial Dynamics of Bukharan Fatwas as Written Artefacts

  • Stella Wisgrill (University of Cambridge), Testing Virtue, Forging Nobility: Emperor Frederick III’s 1462 Augmentation of Arms for the Margravate of Moravia and the Performance of Legal Authority

12:00-13:30: Lunch

PANEL 2 | CIRCULATION AND FORMATION OF LEGAL KNOWLEDGE

13:30-15:00

Moderated by Irina Dudar, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Phillipa Byrne (Trinity College, Dublin), The Materiality of Medieval Judicial Ordines

  • Niko Munz (Oxford University), Bildnisrecht: Legal Aspects of Early Portraiture

15:00-15:30: Coffee Break

PANEL 3 | MULTIPLE MATERIALITIES

15:30-17:30
Moderated by Corinne Mühlemann, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Subah Dayal (New York University), To Attest, Fold, and Copy in the Islamic Port-City: Safavid Seals and Mughal Envelopes across the VOC Archive

  • Masha Goldin (University of Basel), Weapon of Justice? Medieval Swords as Objects and Images

  • Nino Zchomeldise (John Hopkins University), Aesthetics of Illusion and Authenticity in Ottonian Legal Documents

19:00: Dinner

Friday 30 August 2024

PANEL 4 | LEGAL PERFORMANCE

8:30-10:30
Moderated by Fatima Quraishi, University of California, Riverside

  • Shounak Ghosh (Vanderbilt University), Epistolary Texts as Legal Objects: Querying the Mughal Farmān in Diplomatic Contexts

  • Daniela Maldonado Castaneda (University of Toronto), Between Sacred and Script: Examining Legal Objects in Promises, Vows, and Oaths as Defined by Alfonso X in The Seven-Partidas

  • Jordan Skinner (Princeton University), The Medieval Curfew Bell: Sonority and the Voice of Law

10:30-11:00: Coffee Break


PANEL 5 | LONGUE-DURÉE STUDIES
11:00-12:30

Moderation TBA

  • Krisztina Ilko (Queens College / University of Cambridge), The Chess-Knight Seal

  • Heba Mostafa (University of Toronto), “God Protect us from One Finger under Twenty!” The Abbasid Nilometer Column as a Legal Object

12:30-14:00: Lunch

PANEL 6 | EVERYDAY LAW

14:00-15:30

Moderated by Moïra Dato, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Gül Kale (Carleton University, Toronto), The Material and Social Implications of Measuring Tools in Ottoman Legal History

  • Lorenzo Paveggio (University of Padua), What Does a Bribe Look Like? Carolingian munera in Literary Texts

15:30-16:00: Coffee Break

PANEL 7 | OBJECTS IN COURT

16:00-17:30

Moderated by Carlos Rojas Cocoma, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Nathalie Miraval (Yale University), The Sacred Suspended: Martha, Law, and Image in the Early Modern Spanish Atlantic

  • Linda Mueller (Bibliotheca Hertziana Rome/Harvard University), Drawings, Courtroom Practices, and Juridical Decision-Making at the Edges of the Spanish Empire

17:30-18:00: CLOSING REMARKS

For a PDF of the program, click here.