The brutality of the Roman practice of having people fight, often to the death, as a means of entertainment has ensured its enduring place in the popular mind. Yet the history of sport and war are more closely entwined than this outlier suggests. Medieval hunts and tournaments shaped the knight’s body for war, just as hunting in Mughal India trained warriors to fight from horseback, and Japanese yabusame archery fuses training sport with religious ritual. Likewise, modern-day social media observers ‘like’ and ‘share’ short clips, often gruesome ones, of combat from Ukraine to the Middle East, with all the relish of Roman spectators at the arena.
This conference is intended to provide a platform for considering the social, political and cultural significance of both combat as spectacle and sport and war, without restriction of time and space. With the Royal Armouries, the national collection of arms and armour, as the backdrop, it seeks to link the latest intellectual discoveries with the benefits of working up-close with collections and artefacts.
To this end, we invite the submission of contributions based on original research from any perspective or discipline that deal with either of the two main themes of:
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- Combat as spectacle, including the subsequent historiographical or popular culture interpretations of societies who have used combat as spectacle.
- Sport as preparation for war
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We particularly welcome innovative and/or interdisciplinary methodologies that highlight the range of insights which the study of material culture can bring, and global or transnational studies that deal with traditionally understudied subject areas or conceptual topics.
There are three ways to participate:
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- 20-minute individual papers, submitted to https://forms.office.com/e/AtxMbbX32X (deadline 9am GMT, 7 January 2025).
- Chaired panels of three 20-minute papers organised around a shared theme, submitted to https://forms.office.com/e/2EYHNzFxSR (deadline 9am GMT, 7 January 2025)
- Posters, submitted to https://forms.office.com/e/sPfpYzcJE9 (deadline 9am GMT, 1 September 2025)
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In addition, prospective speakers can apply for one of four bursaries of up to £200 at https://forms.office.com/e/fCVNhr1fZE (deadline 7 January). For questions or advice, contact the organisers at mark.bennett@armouries.org.uk.
Mark Bennett (thon/thons/thonself)
Email: mark.bennett@armouries.org.uk
URL: https://royalarmouries.org/
