Programme for Seals and Status 800-1700, a major conference at the British Museum, 4-6 December 2015. Book tickets at the official site.

£50 (£25 students and concessions)

Friday 4 December

08.30      Coffee and registration

09.30      Introduction

Jonathan Williams, British Museum

09.45      Keynote 1

Status: an impression
Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, New York University

10.45      Break

11.00      Session 1: Images and cultural history

Chair: Leslie Webster, British Museum

Seal matrices from Anglo-Saxon England
Simon Keynes, University of Cambridge

Sanctity and the impression of place: pilgrimage art and seals in the Latin Kingdom and the West
Laura Whatley, Auburn University at  Montgomery

European heraldic elements in Islamic seals from Southeast Asia
Annabel Gallop, British Library

12.30      Lunch (not provided)

13.30      Session 2: Politics, power and people

Chair: TBC

Image, eikon and authority: the Republican great seal and its visual context, 1649–1660  James Jago, University of York

Negotiating political status: alliance treaties and city seals in the late medieval Upper Rhine region
Markus Späth, Justus Liebig-Universität Gießen

Social structure (judicial) of 11th-century Constantinople
Jonathan Shea, Dumbarton Oaks

15.00      Tea and coffee break

15.30      Session 3: Life cycles of the seal

Chair: Alan Borthwick,
National Records of Scotland

Chinese seals: stamps of status on Chinese paintings and calligraphy
Mei Xin Wang, British Museum

Sealed in lead: archaeological finds of Papal bullae
Tim Pestell, Norwich Castle Museum

La production de matrices de sceaux chez les orfèvres Bruxellois au
XVIème siècle
Marc Libert, Archives générales du Royaume – Algemeen Rijksarchief

18:30       Speakers dinner

Saturday 5 December

10.00      Keynote 2

The seal as status object
David Crouch, University of Hull

11.00      Break

11.15      Session 1: Status and self-representation

Chair: Julian Gardner

The seal(s) of Robert fitz Walter, godfather of Magna Carta
Nicholas Vincent, University of East Anglia

The seals of Lucrezia Borgia and Isabella d’Este
Diane Ghirardo,
University of Southern California

Social status as established through familial ties on Byzantine lead seals
Angelina Volkoff, Lomonosov Moscow State University

12.45      Lunch (not provided)

14.00      Session 2: Size, perception and production

Chair: Naomi Speakman, British Museum

Does size matter? Social standing and seal dimensions in medieval Britain
John McEwan, Saint Louis University

Studies in the materiality of royal and governmental seals 1100–1300
Elke Cwiertina & Paul Dryburgh, The National Archives

Beyond the usual suspects: seal motifs as expressions of status in non-elite society
Elizabeth New, Aberystwyth University

15.30      Tea and coffee break

16.00      Keynote 3

English medieval seals as works of art
T A Heslop, University of East Anglia

17:00       Conference Reception and Book  Launch

Sunday 6 December

10.00      Keynote 4

Managing the message: royal and governmental seals 1100–1700
Adrian Ailes, The National Archives

11.00      Break

11.15      Session 1: Person and personality

Chair: James Robinson, The Burrell Collection

Sealing ‘on behalf’
Jessica Berenbeim, University of Oxford

Ancient and medieval intaglios in medieval seals: their nature, meaning and social status
John Cherry, British Museum & Martin Henig, University of Oxford

Du sceau au monument funéraire: la pratique de la commandite des prélats français à la fin du Moyen Âge, le cas de Tristan de Salazar
Ambre Vilain, Institut national d’histoire de l’art

12.45      Lunch (not provided)

14.00      Session 2: Ownership, authority and function

Chair: Elizabeth Danbury, University College London

Illustrious ladies: Seals and female authority in Sweden, c. 1300–1430
Louise Berglund, Örebro University

Baronial seals before 1125: how rare a phenomenon?
Jean-François Nieus, University of Namur

Héraldique sigillaire des femmes au Moyen Âge: usage et function
Marie Gregoire, École Pratique des Hautes Études de Paris

15.30      Tea and coffee

16.00      Session 3: Category and corpus
Chair: P D A Harvey

Seals of English medieval queens: an introduction
Elizabeth Danbury, UCL

Names of occupation or office on medieval seal matrices recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme
Helen Geake, British Museum/University of Cambridge

Administrer le comté de Champagne au XIII^e siècle:le statut social et institutionnel des ‘petits officiers’ à travers leurs sceaux
Arnaud Baudin, LAMOP, UMR 8589

17.15      Closing remarks
P D A Harvey

Programme subject to change