Roman History in Carolingian Europe

International Conference, University of Edinburgh, 22-24 September 2025

The Carolingian fascination with the Roman past is one of the most widely known and studied aspects of Charlemagne's renovatio. Less well known is the period's importance for the preservation and transmission of Roman historiographic works. Yet most Roman historical texts that survive were transmitted to us through Fulda, Hersfeld, Lorsch, Tours and other Carolingian centres: indeed, our texts of some of Livy, some of Tacitus, Suetonius, Aurelius Victor, Justin, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the Historia Augusta are principally derived from Carolingian manuscripts.

The University of Edinburgh and the AHRC-funded Last Historians of Rome project will host a conference in Edinburgh on 22-24 September 2025. This conference will explore the ways in which these historians were read and copied in the Carolingian period and the role of Roman historical texts and scholarship in Carolingian intellectual life, bringing together specialists in ancient history and textual editing with scholars of early medieval Europe.


Organisers:

Dr Agnese Bargagna
a.bargagna@ed.ac.uk

Prof Justin A. Stover
justin.stover@ed.ac.uk

Conference Programme

REGISTER HERE


Mon 22 September

2:00 pm - 2:30 pm: Welcome
2:30 pm - 4:00 pm: Panel 1 - Reading Rome in the Carolingian World

• Matthew Edholm (Thomas More College, New Hampshire), Rudolf of Fulda and the Mechanics of Inheritance
• Clara Bykvist (University of Oxford), Remnants of Roman History in the Reading, Copying, and Glossing of Philosophy in the Ninth Century

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Coffee
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm: Keynote - Lars Boje Mortensen (Syddansk Universitet), Conquest and Cultural Appropriation: How the Latin Classics Re-emerged

Reception to follow.

Tues 23 September

9:30 am - 11:15 am: Panel 2 - Carolingian Readers and Adaptations

• Michael Allen (University of Chicago), Roman History in Lupus of Ferrières
• Justin Stover (University of Edinburgh) and George Woudhuysen (University of Nottingham), New evidence for the circulation of the Libellus breuiatus (Epitome de Caesaribus) in the Ninth Century

11:15 am - 11:45 am: Coffee
11:45 am - 1:00 pm: Panel 3 - Teaching and Textual Transmission

• Mariken Teeuwen (Huygens Institute-Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), Roman History in the Carolingian Scriptorium: The Case of Justin’s Epitome of Pompeius Trogus
• Giuseppe Galtieri (Università degli Studi di Salerno), Echoes of Rome: Historical glosses to the Aeneid

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Lunch
2:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Panel 4 - Collections and florilegia

• Veronica Fiscella (University of Edinburgh), The Codex Bambergensis of the Historia Augusta and its corrections
• Marcello Nobili (Università "G. Marconi", Roma), Florilegium Pal. Lat. 886 of the Historia Augusta

(3:30 pm - 3:45 pm Coffee)

• Marek Thue Kretschmer (Université de Lorraine), Historiographical Compilation of Bamberg Hist. 3: Recent Research and New Perspectives

5:00 pm - 6:30 pm: Keynote - Rosamond McKitterick (University of Cambridge): Scribes and Readers of Roman history in Carolingian Europe

Reception to follow

8:00 pm: Conference Dinner

Wed 24 September

9:30 am - 11:30 am: Panel 6 - Ammianus, Josephus, and Vegetius

• Agnese Bargagna (The University of Edinburgh), Different hands in the Fuldensis (Vat. Lat. 1873) of Ammianus Marcellinus
• Anthony Ellis (Universität Bern), Josephus' Jewish War in Carolingian Scriptoria. The Curious Fate of 'Greek' Words in Latin Manuscripts
• Charles West (The University of Edinburgh), From De re militari to De procinctu: Vegetius in Carolingian Mainz

11:30 am - 12:30 am: Coffee and final discussion

POSTER SESSION Postgraduate and Early career scholars funded by the Patrum Lumen Sustine Foundation: Donato Sitaro (PhD Student, Università di Napoli 'Federico II'), Davide Zetto (PhD Student, Università di Venezia 'Ca' Foscari'), Stephanie Strand (MA Student, University of Stockholm)

12:30 am - 1:30 pm: Lunch and farewells