The Royal Historical Society first book prize has this year been won by a book on the medieval Caucasus, MCN co-convenor John Latham-Sprinkle’s The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, 850–1240. John’s book covers the formation and appropriation of Christianity, its ideas and iconography, in the north Caucasus from the ninth century onwards, both emphasising the depth and utility of the expanding religious tradition. He also charts the importance of foreign materiality and mobility and the ways things were translated into the…

One week ago (13-14 March) the Medieval Caucasus Network had its first international conference! We gathered at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel for two days of hybrid format discussions. The theme of the conference, led by Dr. John Latham-Sprinkle as its senior organiser, was studying non-elites in the medieval Caucasus. While exact definitions of a non-elite can vary significantly, a point discussed throughout the conference, the majority of people in the medieval Caucasus were clearly outside its socially and economically elite…

Day One—13th March 09.00- 09.30 Welcome and Registration 09.30 Introduction Bart Lambert (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) 09.45 Keynote 1 Nik Matheou (Edinburgh University)- “Run for the Hills”: Seeing Like a Subaltern in the Medieval Caucasus 10.45-11.15 Coffee Break 11.15-13.00 Session 1: Global Theoretical Perspectives on Caucasian Non-Elites Panel Chair: John Latham-Sprinkle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Nicholas Evans (Birkbeck, University of London)- ‘Weapons of the Weak? Resistance to Lordship in the Early Medieval Caucasus’ Ana Lomadze (Ilia State University)- ‘Neoplatonic Discourse in Medieval…

The Medieval Caucasus Network are seeking papers for a strand at the next International Medieval Congress, which will be held on the 6th to 9th July 2026, covering ideas, historiographies and cultures around time within and connected to the Caucasus region. Paper abstracts approaching any aspect of the archaeology, cultures, faiths, societies, economies, and politics of the Caucasus throughout the approximate period from 500-1500 AD, and which touch in some way upon the theme of time and temporality, will be…

Call for Papers for the First International Conference of the Medieval Caucasus Network, entitled ‘Studying Non-Elites in the Medieval Caucasus’. This will take place at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels, Belgium, on March 13th-14th 2026. The deadline for submission of abstracts is September 30th, 2025, and they should be sent to mcnconference2026@gmail.com. Please see below and the attached Call for Papers for further details. Please share the CfP widely!  This conference aims to present new, comparative and connective approaches to the…

At this year’s International Medieval Congress we organised two sessions on our theme of Learning Caucasian Worlds. Our organisers for this year were James Baillie and Nick Evans, and Nick and Irakli Tezelashvili were our two session moderators. In our first session we had Sopio Gagoshidze discuss the Kakhuli Triptych and some alternative possibilities for how we should understand the creation of its outer wings, and Irakli Tezelashvili discussing the importance of Hellenophile scholarly and clerical networks in forging new…

Dear friends, We’re delighted to once again present our call for paper for next year’s International Medieval Congress, below: image and pdf versions of the call are attached, and we strongly encourage you to share the call widely in your networks. We encourage scholars at all levels to submit, and look forward to seeing you in Leeds next year! With best wishes, James, Nick, John, Bella & Kate (Convenors) Plaintext version: The Medieval Caucasus Network are seeking papers for a…

We once again had a great run of International Medieval Congress sessions this year, with two panels and a roundtable covering a wide array of approaches and aspects of life in the medieval Caucasus. Our first panel focused on religious responses to crisis: Kate Franklin and Ani Honarchian gave the first paper, looking at how different texts encoded different relationships between landscape and the body in Armenian medieval writings, and how the ‘pollution’ of bodies could act as a literary…