Agenda
REMINDER: Online Seminar ‘Socio-economic inequalities during the crisis of the fourteenth century: reality and perceptions’
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Ghent University and the Università di Siena jointly organise an online seminar on ‘Socio-economic inequalities during the crisis of the fourteenth century: reality and perceptions (Italy and Europe, 1270-1330)’. This seminar forms also part of the FWO funded project Economic inequality onthe eve of the Late Medieval crisis. Two regions compared: Tuscany and Northern France (c.1295-c.1320) (project 12Z8221N) led by Dr Davide Christoferi. The seminar also receives support from FNRS under project number 40005274.
Economic inequality together with the so-called conjuncture du 1300 – when European society was at the tipping point between its economic and demographic zenith and its impeding decline – have been at the core of historians’ research agenda in the last decade. This seminar aims to gather and discuss the outcomes and the perspectives of these research fields to study a precise chronological, geographical and cultural space: Central-Northern Italy and Western Europe in 1270-1330. The objective is threefold: 1) to understand how and to what extent medieval society before the Great Plague of 1348 was unequal by focusing on specific case-studies or comparisons between cities, regions, economic sectors and social groups. This is pivotal 2) to explore and discuss the causal mechanisms of the socio-economic inequalities found, in particular, their relation with the economic growth and the transformation experienced by medieval society in those years. Finally, 3) the study of how socio-economic inequalities were perceived and conceptualized as well as addressed by contemporary medieval European societies is believed critical for the understanding of this phenomenon.
On 6 October 2023 the second and last session of the seminar will take place, focusing on “Perceptions, Reflections, and responses” to socioeconomic inequalities. Participation is possible online via the zoom-link mentioned above. You can download the info flyer via the button below.