MANMAX AT IMC LEEDS 2023

On the 5th of July 2023, four members of the ManMax Team (A. Zajic, G. MacDonald, J. Dumont and R. Kulka) presented a session entitled “Networks and Entanglements at the Time of Maximilian I of Habsburg” (nr. 1314) at the IMC Leeds.

This session aimed at presenting the goals and objectives of the SFB project: ‘Managing Maximilian (1493-1519). Persona, Politics, and Personnel through the Lens of Digital Prosopography’. The project ambitions are to better understand the role played by vast networks of agents in the nascent Habsburg Monarchy. These agents appear in the documentation generated by Maximilian’s chanceries and administration. Their profiles are very diverse: administrators and officers from the top to the lowest level, from the central institutions to the local administrations; as well as artists, humanists, and scholars, envoys and diplomats. This session will propose a series of three papers focusing on specific networks: 1. the chancery personnel and the connections that they created between actors through paper work; 2. craftsmen and artisans involved in the mass (and also luxurious) production of weapons; and 3. the chapel personnel and musicians working for Maximilian I.

(Organiser/Moderator/Chair: Jonathan Dumont)

The papers given were:

Writing Maximilian: Prince, Pen, and Penmanship – Uses of Writing at Court and in the Chancery, by Andreas Zajic.

Armouring Maximilian: Chivalry, Tournament, and the Culture of the Gift at the Court of Maximilian, by Rahul Kulka.

Nicolaus Pol, the Calendar Reform of Leo X, and Parallel Networks of Scientific Patronage in Renaissance Vienna, by Grantley McDonald.

The session was followed by a vibrant discussion with colleagues on the aims and goals of the ManMax project. The full program of the IMC Leeds 2023 can be downloaded here.