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

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.