Speaker
Description
In this paper we report on the "The Ruler in the Mass Media. Frankish image politics on coins and seals in cultural comparison", a dissertation completed at the Goethe University Frankfurt. The extent to which Frankish emperors and kings conveyed political messages through coins and seals in the period from 500 to 1000 is examined. In addition, I discuss interactions and differences to the media of neighboring dominions and cultures, such as the Byzantine Empire and the Lombardic, Visigothic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. This lays the groundwork for discussing the political pictorial history of early post-Roman Europe. Furthermore I describe the differences within the Frankish world created by the fragmentation of the empire in the aftermath of the death of Louis the Pious. The paper also focuses on the interplay of the related media of coins and seals, as well as on the adoption by the Franks of the outdated Western Roman imagery.
