In the late Middle Ages, exclusion became a basic instrument for urban governance, as it enabled lay and ecclesiastical leaders to maintain their control over urban dwellers on the basis of maintaining a certain social discipline and an “ordered” society. Thus, medieval urban society was defined as a community of values according to the ecclesiastical and secular legislation, and it was articulated as a political discourse, which was incorporated into the public sphere. The urban community had to adapt to a legal and ideological framework and to some parameters of behavior, in which exclusion from the community was a powerful communication tool of social discipline. Historians and Graduate students are encouraged to submit abstracts for research presentations or posters on topics related to “exclusion and social discipline in the Medieval European City”.

Argument

The exclusion of the urban community was achieved through the separation of friends, family, job, urban governance institutions, confiscation of property, public humiliation, expulsion from the guild, proscription and the exile from the city. Repressive practices linked to the politics of fear, which took many forms, from legal punishment to social exclusion. No social group was left out of the policies of social discipline by means of exclusion. The social control of the rulers affected any person who was located outside the established parameters, whether political dissidents, foreigners, heretics, religious minorities, poor people, homeless, sick persons, categories of women or gays. The excluded people were considered common criminals, creating a world of urban marginalization. The role of the rulers, as guarantors of the common good, consisted in repressing and punishing anyone who deviated from social discipline, which was part of a gradual process of empowerment of urban elites in the late Middle Ages.

We will focus on:

• The terminology of urban exclusion
• The representation of exclusion in the sources
• The instruments of exclusion
• Political dissent
• Poverty and social marginalization
• Illness and exclusion
• Gender and social exclusion
• Religion and exclusion
• Cultures of exclusion
• The topography of exclusion: hospitals, suburbs and ghettos
• The resistance of the excluded 

This fascinating conference may be a good springboard to facilitate this goal.

Submission guidelines

Historians and Graduate students are encouraged to submit abstracts for research presentations or posters on topics related to "Exclusion and social discipline in the Medieval European City”.

Abstracts should be no more than 500 characters and should clearly state the purpose, thesis, methodology, and principal findings of the paper to be presented. Successful proposals will be published in 2018. All abstracts and a short CV should be submitted electronically to Jesús Solórzano at:  solorzaja@unican.es and Jelle Haemers jelle.haemers@kuleuven.be

The deadline for submissions will be September 15th, 2017.

Organizers

Chair

• Jesús Ángel Solórzano Telechea (Universidad de Cantabria)

Co-Chair

• Jelle Haemers (Universiteit Leuven)

Scientific Committee

• Amélia Aguiar Andrade (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
• Raphaela Averkorn (Universität Siegen)
• Iñaki Bazán Díaz (Universidad del País Vasco)
• Michel Bochaca (Université de La Rochelle)
• David Ditchburn (Trinity College Dublin)
• Ariel Guiance (CONICET-Universidad de Córdoba de Argentina)
• Ricardo Izquierdo Benito (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha)
• Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar (Universidad de Murcia)
• Christian Liddy (University of Durham)
• Denis Menjot (Université de Lyon II)
• Giuliano Pinto (Universitá degli studi di Firenze)
• Sarah Rees Jones (University of York)
• Ana María Rivera Medina (UNED)
• Teófilo F. Ruiz (University of California-Los Ángeles)
• Vicente Salvatierra Cuenca (Universidad de Jaén)
• Louis Sicking (Universiteit Leiden y U. Ámsterdam)
• Urszula Sowina (Instituto Arqueológico de Varsovia)
• Mª Isabel del Val Valdivieso (Universidad de Valladolid)

Honorary Committee

• Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu (Former Chair)