In addition to Jiayu Dang, who will be a guest here in Cologne until November this year (see the blog post from February), we are delighted to welcome another guest at the University of Cologne’s Institute of History since the beginning of the month: Dai Guo.
Dai Guo is a Chinese student who is pursuing her doctorate at the Université de Lorraine (France) under the supervision of Sylvie Joye. The topic of her doctoral thesis is ‘The Carolingian queens through the lens of medieval sources (8th century-9th century)’. As consorts of the king, they held an important position and played a significant role in both private and public life at the Carolingian courts. Due to the constraints of the medieval tradition of history, however, they received comparatively little attention, and were never the main subjects of historical narratives. Nevertheless, letters, chronicles, imperial biographies, poems, epitaphs and other contemporary sources can be used to reconstruct the actions of Carolingian queens and their relatives both at court and outside it. Through comparison with the roles and actions of the Merovingian queens, the dissertation project aims to create a more concrete idea of the queens of the Carolingian period. The evolution of the family status, political agency and social situation of these queens, as well as the rise and fall of the Pippinid family will be examined. The changes in the social context of Carolingian society under the rule of this family are also taken into account within the study.
We are happy to having Dai here until July 2024!