The Myth of the First City in the Earlier Middle Ages

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• Sam Ottewill-Soulsby, Faculty of Classics
• Tuesday 17 October 2017, 13:10-14:00
• The Richard King Room, Darwin College.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Arthur Dudney.

The idea of a mythical first city appears in most societies that possess urban settlements, and medieval Europe was no exception. This talk will discuss the way medieval writers approached the origins of urban living, a subject which acquired importance in a wide variety of areas of study, including history writing, philosophy and legal theory. People who engaged with the problem had to reckon with both the Biblical first city of Cain and anthropological models inherited from the Classical world. Examination of how these writers solved these issues sheds light not just on their understanding of the primordial past, but also their views of the city and human civilisation as a whole.

This talk is part of the Darwin College Humanities and Social Sciences Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• AUB_Cambridge Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Chris Davis' list
• Darwin College Humanities and Social Sciences Seminars
• Darwin College Research Talks
• Darwin Lectures and Seminars
• ESRC DTP
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• The Richard King Room, Darwin College
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