2020 ICMS Call for Papers: Seal the Real

August 11, 2019 in Announcements, Conference, Kalamazoo, Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Call for Papers

Session Sponsored
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(7–10 May 2020)

Deadline for Proposals:  15 September 2019

With the achievement of our Activities at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS), as announced in our 2019 Congress Program, we prepare the program for the 2020 Congress.

The Call for Papers for our 4 sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions describes their range and aims. Here we announce a specialized Call for Papers for 1 of our 4 sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions:  “Seal the Real”.

In 2019, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence celebrates its 20th year as a nonprofit educational corporation and its 30th year as an international scholarly organization.  We have a tradition of celebrating landmark Anniversaries, both for our organization, with organizations which which we share anniversaries, and for other events, as described, for example, in our 2014 Anniversary Reflections.  We build upon this year’s multiple celebrations in designing future activities.

This coming year, 2020, we prepare events at the Congress and elsewhere, as customarily, so as to represent, to explore, to promote, to celebrate, and to advance aspects of our shared range of interests, fields of study, subject matter, and collaboration between younger and established scholars, teachers, and others, in multiple centers.

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)As usual, we aim to publish the Program for the accepted Papers, once the Call For Papers has completed its specified span. We will publish the Abstracts for these Papers as the preparations for the Congress advance and as their Authors permit. Abstracts for previous Congresses appear in our Congress Abstracts, conveniently Indexed both by Year and by Author.

Background and Foreground

Glimpses of our co-sponsored Receptions at the Congress appear in the souvenirs of our Celebrations and in the Reports for the individual Congresses (2016, 2015, and 2014 Anniversary).

Agenda for 2017 Open Business Meeting of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. 1-page Agenda set in RGME Bembino.

2017 Business Meeting Agenda

The Agendas for our Open Business Meetings are available for your inspection and perusal:

These 1-page statements serve as concise Reports for our Activities, Plans, and Desiderata.

These publications, like most of our Publications, are FREE, but we welcome donations, both in funds and in kind, for our nonprofit mission, with the option of tax-deduction for your Donations.

Call for Papers

Seal the Real:  Documentary Records, Seals & Authentications

Judgment of Arbitration by Philip I, Count of Savoy, of 28 May 1275 with Brown Wax Seal and with Docketing in French. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Judgment of Arbitration by Philip I, Count of Savoy, of 28 May 1275
with Brown Wax Seal
and with Docketing in French. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

This session explores the presentation and attestation of documentary records in the medieval and early modern periods, in the long transition to the modern custom of signatures as autographs — as distinct (partly) from earlier ‘signatures’ often made by proxy, whether by cross-signs, names inscribed by others on behalf of the signatory, personal or official seals, or other forms.  The fields of consideration include forgeries (‘signatures’, seals, and questionable documents), reported records of documents perhaps otherwise lost (as in cartularies, chronicles, and other narratives), and the occasional preservation of fingerprints upon the records themselves.

The time-honored human determination to establish recognized — that is, effective — modes of authenticating intentions and actions by individuals and institutions alike underpins the historical transmission (or disruption, willful and otherwise) of formal records of agreements, sales, transfers, decisions over grievances and feuds, and other impactful official arrangements across the centuries. Examining case studies for this session, we encourage multiple approaches, subject matters, and methodologies for analyzing the strategies adopted (successfully or otherwise) in the pursuit of such a quest for authentication.

The desire effectively to express identity and authenticity as a matter of record may well resonate with many participants.  The Session considers aspects of the historical traditions, improvisations, inventions, and (it may be) occasional failures of earlier centuries in such a quest.  Perchance we might learn instructively from the past.

An example of the quest appears among our blogposts:
Curiouser and Curiouser.

Join our session and explore the discussion.

The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permission

Organized by

Mildred Budny
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
A New Jersey Nonprofit Educational Corporation
46 Snowden Lane
Princeton
New Jersey 08540

Please send your proposals to [email protected] by 15 September 2019.

Equestrian Wax Seal of Philip I, Count of Savoy, Affixed to his Judgment of Abritration, 28 May 1275. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Equestrian Wax Seal of Philip I, Count of Savoy,
Affixed to his Judgment of Abritration, 28 May 1275. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

 

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Please send your proposals for papers, along with the completed Congress Participant Information Form, to [email protected], to reach us on or before 15 September 2019.

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions.

For our nonprofit educational mission, with tax-exempt status, donations in funds and in kind (expertise, materials, time) are welcome.

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