On Friday 3 June 2022 (4pm CEST), Dr. Marcus Meer (German Historical Institute London) will speak about 'Marks of Difference? Comparative Perspectives on Heraldry and Urban Society in Late Medieval England and Germany'.

This talk will reflect on a concluded research project that compared the functions and perceptions of coats of arms in English and German-speaking cities of the later Middle Ages. While specific uses of burgess arms, corporate arms, and municipal arms alongside the arms of knights, princes, and kings do reflect larger political and cultural differences between these two urban landscapes, overall the results of this project point to a shared (European) urban visual culture: in these urban societies, perceptions of heraldry were similar enough to allow heraldic signs to perform a surprisingly uniform repertoire of communicative functions, from expressing and strengthening local hierarchies, social networks and political dependencies to asserting and contesting claims to possession and power in the urban space.

This lecture is organized by the Belgo-British Research Network for Medieval Urban History, initiated by Queen Mary University London and the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at Ghent University.