In recent years, research on the concept of ‘empire’ has seen an upswing of interest in both Political Science and History. Definitions of ‘empire’ abound, as they do for words such as ‘discourse’, ‘performance’ and ‘culture’. Countless books and edited volumes concerning questions of ‘empire’ have been published since the turn of the century. On the most general level, however, the majority of studies on questions of ‘empire’ tend to neglect the European Middle Ages. Medievalists continue to associate the Latin terms imperium and imperator primarily with the (Holy) Roman Empire. A closer examination of the existing material in Latin and the vernacular languages reveals that many late medieval authors were far from limited in their use of imperial terminology. This introductory essay establishes the historiographical context for an exploration of this terminology as it was employed in the Latin West in two instances. The first is imperial self-designation, cases where rulers explicitly adopted or avoided the language of empire in referring to themselves or their realms. The second is the use of imperial terminology by authors from Latin Europe to describe and characterise distant and foreign regions of the world.

中文翻译：

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有争议的术语

近年来，对“帝国”概念的研究引起了政治学和历史学的兴趣。“帝国”的定义比比皆是，就像它们对“话语”、“表演”和“文化”等词的定义一样。自世纪之交以来，已经出版了无数关于“帝国”问题的书籍和编辑卷。然而，在最普遍的层面上，大多数关于“帝国”问题的研究往往忽略了欧洲中世纪。中世纪主义者继续将拉丁术语帝国和皇帝主要与（神圣）罗马帝国联系起来。对现有的拉丁文和方言材料的仔细研究表明，许多中世纪晚期作家在使用帝国术语方面远非受限。这篇介绍性文章为探索这个术语的历史背景奠定了基础，因为它在拉丁西部有两个例子。第一种是帝国自称，即统治者在提及自己或他们的领域时明确采用或避免使用帝国语言的情况。第二个是来自拉丁欧洲的作者使用帝国术语来描述和描述世界上遥远和外国的地区。