Noblesse Oblige? 'Barons' and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia (10th-14th Centuries)

中世纪男爵的故事通常是负面的。因为在现代世界中，贵族几乎普遍被中央集权国家所取代，他们经常被塑造成一股倒退的力量，其自身利益阻碍了“进步”。这也不仅仅是欧洲的一种叙事，尽管史学上对“国家的崛起”的关注赋予了拉丁基督教政治形成经验的特权，并塑造了在其他历史背景下看待非皇室精英的方式。因此，像领主、阿米尔、释迦牟尼和武士这样的私人尺子经常被认为与更广泛的社会需求相抵触。这个网络试图通过两个重要而互补的方式来挑战人们对‘男爵’在他们与公共利益的关系中所扮演角色的理解。首先，我们打算探索这些非王室精英如何构思和实施负责任的政府的案例研究，无论是为他们自己还是为他人。其次，我们打算在一个大胆的跨国框架下比较这些案例研究，从西欧到中国，跨越了9世纪主要中央集权帝国项目的崩溃和14世纪大死的不稳定经历。我们将把国际学者聚集在两个在线工作组中，然后是两个国际研讨会，以讨论、辩论和传播对这位男爵在非欧亚中世纪的‘公众’角色的解释。这两个工作组和研讨会将被组织成两个主要的研究轴心：“跨国背景下的男爵和公共利益”和“跨国背景下的少数群体和政府”，这两个工作组将分别工作，然后联合在两个为期数天的研讨会上分享他们的研究结果。通过这一合作开发的研究成果随后将得到完善，并在利兹举行的国际中世纪大会上向更广泛的受众展示。这项研究的遗产将通过出版在该网络的合作过程中完善的一系列论文而得到保存。编辑后的书将提供比较和补充的案例研究，这些研究将作为新的次级学科的基础和进一步研究的动力。因此，对于学生和学者来说，研究中世纪贵族、政治史和全球中世纪都是至关重要的。一个互动网站将展示该网络个别成员的研究成果，因为所有参与者除了主持教学材料外，还将撰写适合广大受众的博客文章和工作论文。然后，我们将通过在一本受欢迎的历史杂志上发表一篇文章来进一步扩大我们对更广泛公众的接触。最后，通过与历史协会的合作，我们将与中学教师组织网络研讨会，帮助在课堂上介绍中世纪政治和跨国历史。

The story of the medieval barons is commonly a negative one. Because aristocracies have been almost universally eclipsed by centralised states in the modern world, they are often cast as regressive forces whose self-interest held back 'progress'. Nor is this exclusively a European narrative, though the historiographical attention paid to the 'rise of the State' has privileged the Latin Christian experience of political formation and shaped the way in which non-royal élites are seen in other historical contexts. As a result, 'private' rulers such as lords, amirs, kshatriya, and samurai are often assumed to have been at odds with the needs of the wider society.This network seeks to challenge this understanding of the role of 'barons' in their relation to public good in two important and complementary ways. First, we intend to explore case studies of how these non-royal élites conceived and implemented responsible government, whether for themselves or for others. Second, we intend to compare these case studies in a bold transnational framework, reaching from western Europe to China, that spans the collapse of major centralised imperial projects in the ninth century to the destabilising experience of the Great Death in the fourteenth.We will bring together international scholars in two online working groups, followed by two international workshops in order to discuss, debate, and disseminate interpretations of the 'public' role of the baron in an Afro-Eurasian Middle Ages. The two working groups and workshops will be organised into two major axes of research: 'Barons and the Public Good in a Transnational Context' and 'Minority Élites and Government in a Transnational Context' which will work separately before uniting in two multiple-day workshops to share their findings. The research developed through this collaboration will then be refined and presented to a wider audience at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds.The legacy of this research will be preserved through the production of a collected volume of essays perfected over the course of the network's collaboration. The edited book will provide comparative and complementary case studies that will serve as a foundation for a new subdiscipline and a spur to further research. As such, it will be critical to both students and scholars approaching the medieval aristocracy, political history, and the 'Global Middle Ages'. An interactive website will showcase the research produced by the network's individual members, as all participants will produce blog posts and working papers suitable for a wide audience, in addition hosting teaching materials. Our outreach to the wider public will then be furthered through an article in a popular history magazine. Finally, through partnership with the Historical Association, we will organise webinars with secondary school teachers to help inform the presentation of medieval political and transnational history in the classroom.