After successful conferences in Budapest (2014), Olomouc (2016), Zagreb (2018), and online in Gdansk (2021), the Fifth Biennial Conference of MECERN (http://mecern.eu/) will focus on the vexed relationship between continuity and change in medieval history, especially in Central Europe. Continuity and Change have always been topics that historians, archaeologists, art historians, social scientists and scholars from other disciplines were interested in. Recently our society has faced profound changes and disruptions. What was the situation in the Middle Ages? Was Central Europe as a specific historical, cultural, religious and political region shaped by continual developments on the social and political level, in the period ca. 500-1600? Or, was it rather marked by unexpected and radical changes, which were the essential driving forces in the regionʼs historical development? Which medieval changes influenced the development in Central Europe substantially? What were the ruptures in the medieval past? Which phenomena and spheres of life were marked by continuity rather than change? What are the methods that medievalists use to detect and study them?

Proposals may address (but are not limited to) the following issues:

• continuity and change in Central Europe with respect to historical periods and periodization, ways and uses of periodization and division of the past, the beginning and the end of the Middle Ages in Central Europe
• continuity and persistence of pagan and Roman elements in Central Europe
• continuities and changes with respect to decline of old and the establishment of new political and state units in Central Europe (such as Great Moravia, medieval kingdoms of Bohemia, Poland and Hungary, etc.)
• persistent or changing impacts of empires present in or surrounding Central Europe
• continuity and change with respect to Christianization of society throughout the medieval period, Reformation(s) and continuity and change
• continuity and change from archaeological perspective
• crucial political, social, economic, religious, cultural changes and turning points in medieval Central Europe
• discoveries and inventions, introduction of novelties
• new literary and artistic genres and styles (e.g. Humanist, Renaissance) versus continuities
• continuities and changes in the visual and material culture