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MANAGING MAXIMILIAN AT THE IMC LEEDS 2025


As every year, the International Medieval Congress (IMC) will be held in Leeds (7-10 July 2025).

At this year’s event, the Managing Maximilian project will be represented in no fewer than five different sessions, as outlined below.


WEDNESDAY 09 JULY 2025: 09.00-10.30 — Session: 1042

MANAGING MAXIMILIAN, I: ERUDITION AND THE ROLE OF HUMANIST ELITES AT THE COURT OF EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN I

Organiser and Moderator: Andreas Zajic

Iris Palenik, The Emperor’s New Scribes: Learnings of a Royal Chancery at the Beginning of the 16th Century

Andrea Singh Bottanova, The Way Ahead: Learned Men in Maximilian’s Administration and Their Social Networks

Lukas Ebert, The Epic as Encyclopedia: The Presentation of Humanist Scholarship in Epic Poetry Dedicated to Emperor Maximilian I


WEDNESDAY 09 JULY 2025: 11.15-12.45 — Session: 1142

MANAGING MAXIMILIAN, II: POWERBROKERS ON AND OFF DUTY — ENTANGLEMENTS OF OFFICEHOLDERS IN THE ERA OF EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN I

Organiser and Moderator: Andreas Zajic

Judit Majorossy, A Viennese Confraternity and Networking around Emperor Maximilian I

Ronald Kurt Salzer, Maximilian I and the Pawns of Power

Sonia Lessacher, Desk Clerk and/or Political Actor? Entanglements of Maximilian I’s Chancery Staff with Further Austria


WEDNESDAY 09 JULY 2025: 14.15-15.45 — Session: 1242

MANAGING MAXIMILIAN, III: CHILDREN, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH AT HABSBURG COURTS — 1450-1500

Organiser and Moderator: Christina Lutter

Christina Lutter, Children and Child Education in Helene Kottanerin’s Memoirs, c. 1450

Flora Bergen, The Education of Ladislaus the Posthumous

Christof Muigg, Practices and Constructions of Childhood and Gender at the Court of Maximilian I of Habsburg


WEDNESDAY 09 JULY 2025: 16.30-18.00 — Session: 1342

MANAGING MAXIMILIAN, IV: CHILDREN, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH AT HABSBURG COURTS — AROUND 1500

Organiser and Moderator: Christina Lutter

Rahul Kulka, Boys’ Armour and the Construction of Princely Masculinities in the Late Middle Ages

Grantley McDonald, Choirboys and Organ Students at the Court of Maximilian I of Habsburg and Frederick III of Electoral Saxony

Carina Siegl, Princesses in Training: Formative Years in the Early Lives of Mary of Habsburg and Anne Jagiello, 1515-1522


WEDNESDAY 09 JULY 2025: 19.00-20.00 — Session: 1442

MANAGING MAXIMILIAN, V: HOW DID INFORMAL COMMUNICATION PROMOTE CAREERS AT COURT? – A ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

Organisers: Christina Lutter and Andreas Zajic

Moderator: Christina Lutter

Participants: Georg Buchbauer, Herbert Krammer and Andreas Zajic

Recent scholarship on pre-modern state formation has drawn attention to the importance of informal practices of statecraft in an otherwise increasingly formalised administration, emphasising the agency of closely interconnected power brokers at court and in government. Patronage, clientelism, and kinship were among the factors that facilitated and promoted the informal and intimate communication of news between influential office holders in Emperor Maximilian’s circle. However, even the most limited and secluded channels of communication sometimes failed to meet the demands of utmost secrecy, so that cryptography was frequently used at the Habsburg court, making Maximilian and his secretaries masters of ciphers and code-breakers. This round table discussion will explore letter-writing – including contemporary encryption techniques, as well as the communicative settings and functions of the encrypted texts – among officials as an informal practice in a twofold sense: both as a tool of administrative practice on the ‘back stage’ of governance and as a medium that was considerably shaped by informal relationships and expectations.


The abstracts of the various papers are available here

The full programme is available here


Header Image Credit: IMC Leeds 2025


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Jonathan Dumont (January 20, 2025). MANAGING MAXIMILIAN AT THE IMC LEEDS 2025. Managing Maximilian (1493-1519) - A blog on Persona, Politics, and Personnel through the Lens of Digital Prosopography at the time of Maximilian of Habsburg. Retrieved March 26, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/1343a


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