Minutes of the De Re Militari Business Meeting

Held in May 2005, Kalamazoo, Michigan

1. Report on De Re Militari sessions at Kalamazoo, by Kelly DeVries

The number of sessions has increased from four to five.  Kelly will try for five next year, keeping the number of papers to three per session.  The sessions will be divided into Early, High and Late Medieval, plus special topics session.   Kelly mentioned the problem of conflicting sessions, as many non-De Re Militari sessions contain mililtary material.
This year's plenary lecture will be delivered by Richard Barber, as John Gillingham is retired and cannot afford to come.  Next year, Richard Abels will present the lecture "The Tyranny of a Disconstruct."   Two years hence, an offer will be made to John Haldon to give a lecture on Byzantine military history. 
Kelly is advising the conference coordinators not to schedule the De Re Militari sessions against Crusade panels, and preferably not against those of the Joan of Arc Society or the Society of White Heart.

2. Journal Report by Clifford Rogers

Clifford reports that the journal lost Bernie Bachrach as editor and that John France has been approved as editor for volume 4, and the journal is already getting quite a few manuscripts.
The Journal includes discussions of the sources, reply pieces in a non-article format, for example volume 4 will contain a reply to an article appearing in volume 3.

3. Circulation of the journal by Susan Dykstra-Poel

Susan mentions that the journal has 200 individual subscribers and 60 library subscriptions, noting that it is much easier to persuade libraries to buy annuals rather than journals.
Susan also mentions that credit cards are not charged immediately; purchases were formerly treated as a book purchase; now purchases are being treated as memberships.

4. Website report by Peter Konieczny

The site received a rave review from CHOICE magazine, a librarian's review journal of academic resources.  Peter will be redesigning the look of the website and will be soliciting to have more articles submitted to the website.  Richard Abels suggested that we add to the website a section on graduate programs in medieval military history.

5. Prize Committee report by Stephen Morillo

A replacement is needed for one of the positions on the Verbruggen Prize committee.  Richard Abels and John France are current members and they would like to add a European scholar specializing in the Later Middle Ages.  Clifford Rogers suggested we try to tap people who have already given papers, such as Richard Kaeuper.

Clifford also suggested that since we have the available funds, that we try to institute a best first article prize for medieval military history, not necessarily in our journal, but from any publication.  The judges would be the Verbruggen Prize committee and the editors of the journal.  The first article prize should be $100 and a full page announcement in the journal.

Richard Abels wanted to define the first article more exactly, proposing that the award be made to non-tenured junior professors to help them get tenure. Richard cited the example of the Medieval Academy which has an award for junior scholars. Cliff added that the recipient should not be a senior person in a public history position, but a junior person.  Cliff suggested that we approach the Society for Military History to contribute $100.00 for the prize, making the award $200.00 in co-sponsorship with De Re Militari

Cliff offered a suggestion to bring in more money to pay for a guest speaker, proposing an associate membership for an additional $10.00

Two additional suggestions were made:

1. placing a Paypal link on the website for donations

2. Application for tax exempt status for De Re Militari: Bruce O’Brien of the Haskins Society arranged tax exempt status for that organization.  Susan questioned whether this was possible for De Re Militari because of our involvement with a commercial company

Two motions were voted on and approved:

            1. The institution of an article prize

            2. The associate membership

A decision on the use of funds for travel was postponed pending the accumulation of sufficient income.

6. Treasurer’s Report as of 30 March 2005: Carroll Gillmor

Our current balance is now at $700.90 (US)