Call for Papers: The Social Life of Early Medieval Normative Texts (SOLEMNE Sessions), International Medieval Congress 2027, Leeds [5-8 July 2027; Hybrid]

The SOLEMNE team at Radboud University Nijmegen is organising a series of sessions at the International Medieval Congress (IMC) in Leeds, 5-8 July 2027, under the theme The Social Life of Early Medieval Normative Texts, and invites paper proposals from interested speakers.

The call proceeds from the position that the study of social norms lets scholars investigate the moral frameworks and minds of individuals and communities. In early medieval studies of the Latin West, legal, canonical and other normative texts are among the most promising sources for such an investigation, despite their formal and sometimes abstract character. Examining a broad range of prescriptive and normative texts offers new perspectives on how those texts challenged or reflected social norms, and on how ideas about the organisation of social life may have travelled and changed as the texts themselves circulated, were copied and were redeployed in new contexts.

The sessions examine how norms were developed, reinforced and established across various medieval textual and non-textual genres. Historians of different stripes are invited to address the interaction of norms and social practice in the (early) Middle Ages.

• Inquiries may focus on manuscript-based and legal sources from, among others, canon law, penitentials and capitularies.
• Contributions from scholars working with historical narrative, visual and artistic materials are also welcome.
• Submissions from the field of Digital Humanities that address methodological issues related to the study of early medieval norms are particularly encouraged.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• The nachleben of Roman law
• Early medieval canonical collections within their manuscript contexts
• The development of specific norms in penitential regulations
• Shaping medieval communities and social cohesion through rules and regulations
• Norms in hagiographical sources and their subsequent reception
• The emergence of gendered rules in early medieval history
• Liturgical representations of normativity and meaning
• Depictions of socialization in medieval images, artworks and objects

Interested speakers are invited to submit a provisional title and an abstract of up to 300 words, along with a brief biography including institutional affiliation, department and email address, to Bruno Schalekamp (Radboud University, Nijmegen) at bruno.schalekamp@ru.nl. Additional inquiries may be directed to the same address.

The application deadline is 31 August 2026, which is also the IMC's own deadline for individual paper proposals.

IMC 2027 runs from Monday 5 July to Thursday 8 July 2027 and will be the sixth fully hybrid edition, with an in-person gathering in Leeds and a virtual component for those unable to attend in person. Proposers are asked at the point of submission whether they would prefer to present in person or virtually.

The Congress is an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of Medieval Studies. Its special thematic strand for 2027 is 'Communities', co-ordinated by Cosmin Popa-Gorjanu (Universitatea '1 Decembrie 1918' din Alba Iulia), and it welcomes session and paper proposals in all major languages.

The Social Life of Early Medieval Normative Texts (SOLEMNE, 2023-2028) is a five-year project funded by a European Research Council Consolidator Grant and carried out at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History, Radboud University Nijmegen, under Dr Sven Meeder, associate professor of medieval history.

The project studies how ideas about social norms expressed in works of canon law spread through medieval Western Europe (c. 500-1200), treating canonical collections as assortments of ideas and using a digital tool to analyse the transmission of combinations of authoritative statements.

There is no fee to submit an abstract. The organiser states that it is unable to provide financial support for participants' travel or registration costs, and encourages participants without access to relevant funding to apply for the IMC bursary or other conference funding sources.