Medieval Treaties and The Diplomatic Aesthetic

Abstract

This essay brings two strands of scholarship into conversation with one another: the New Diplomatic History and the study of material texts as visual culture. What follows examines a significant point of contact for these two discussions: the documents of diplomacy, and more specifically, treaty ratifications of the later Middle Ages. A central premise of New Diplomatic History involves an understanding of diplomacy as an expanded field-in other words, there is more to diplomacy than treaties. As this 1 analysis will suggest, there is also more to treaties themselves. Letters of procuration, articles of agreement, and treaty ratifications all have allusive and symbolic elements, and even these most canonical sources of diplomatic history are also part of cultural history. The first part of this essay will explain some of the broader questions and motivations for ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank Brigitte Bedos-Rezak and two anonymous readers for their comments on a preliminary draft; John McNeill, for inviting me to speak in the British Archaeological Association Lecture Series, where I presented a version of this paper; and members of the BAA audience for their responses, especially Lloyd de Beer, Sandy Heslop, and Nigel Ramsay.