Medieval Chronicle Society

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Medieval Chronicle Society is an international and interdisciplinary organisation founded to facilitate the work of scholars interested in medieval chronicles, or more generally medieval historiography.

Alongside annals, chronicles were the main genre of historical writing in the Middle Ages. Consequently they have always been of great importance to historians. The extent to which they are also of interest to students of medieval literature or of historical linguistics was only fully realised in the latter part of the 20th century. Since many chronicles are illustrated, they are also a fruitful object of study for art historians. It was the desire for a forum in which these disciplines could operate together that led to the foundation of the society.

The history of the society began with a series of triennial conferences initially in Utrecht, but later moving from place to place. These early conferences were hosted by Erik Kooper (English studies, Utrecht). It was at the second of these conferences, in 1999, that the society was formally founded.

Conferences to date:

• 1996 Utrecht (Driebergen)
• 1999 Utrecht (Driebergen)
• 2002 Utrecht (Doorn)
• 2005 Reading
• 2008 Belfast

Volumes of proceedings of the first three conferences were published by Rodopi under the title The Medieval Chronicle vols 1-3. When the society was founded, this triennial publication was transformed into a yearbook.

A number of interdisciplinary projects have been inspired by the society, including the Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, due to appear with Brill (Leiden) in 2009.