Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies
Ambiguities of Hospitality in the Middle Ages, c. 1000-1350
Edited by Wojtek Jezierski Edited by Lars Kjaer
The case studies in this volume show how in many contexts hospitality served as ambiguous means of interplay between lofty ideals and complex social practice and a way of conceptualizing political and cultural conflict.
Many of our oldest and best-loved stories are about killing guests and betraying hosts. Hospitality is celebrated, in medieval texts and in medieval studies, as a way of binding individuals together and strengthening social cohesion, but both the practice and narration of hospitality was shot through with ambiguity and ambivalence. This volume shifts the scholarly gaze from the high table – where kings, queens, and honoured guests are graciously served by skilled servants – to the shadowy corners of the hall, the places where gossip and complaint are exchanged, where outlaws hide under the guise of hospitality, where hostages and troublesome strangers are benched, where the light from the hall-fire reflects on drawn blades: prompting difficult reflections on the processes of extraction and predation that provided the material foundations for the feast. The chapters in Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies range from Silk Road caravanserais in Armenia and crusader relations in the Latin East, through ambassadorial and papal receptions in the Mediterranean, treatment of merchants and the poor in Scandinavia, elite feasts in Latin Europe, to hosting of outlaws and hostages in Eurasia. The authors explore ambiguities of hospitality in the Middle Ages through a wide range of sources and methodological approaches.
- Edited by Wojtek Jezierski
- Edited by Lars Kjaer
Other Titles in this Series
Andreas Vesalius and the ‘Fabrica’ in the Age of Printing
Art, Anatomy, and Printing in the Italian Renaissance
Volume 33
Saints and their Lives on the Periphery
Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c.1000-1200)
Volume 9
Material Restoration
A Fragment from Eleventh-Century Echternach in a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex
Volume 7
Jerusalem in the Alps
The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy
Volume 37
Eclipse of Empire?
Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late-Medieval France
Volume 1
Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World
European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Volume 36
Visions of Unity after the Visigoths
Early Iberian Latin Chronicles and the Mediterranean World
Volume 26
The Presence of Medieval English Literature
Studies at the Interface of History, Author, and Text in a Selection of Middle English Literary Landmarks
Volume 14
Visions of Medieval History in North America and Europe
Studies on Cultural Identity and Power
Volume 41
King John’s Delegation to the Almohad Court (1212)
Medieval Interreligious Interactions and Modern Historiography
Volume 23
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