Intricate Interfaith Networks in the Middle Ages: Quotidian Jewish-Christian Contacts

Recent scholarship has shown that the denominational divide between Jews and Christians, although ever present and at times even violently so, did not stop individuals and groups from forming ties and expanding them in more intricate ways than previously thought. These networks functioned with what seems to be a disregard to the denominational and religious difference. This is by no means a simple and self evident statement. The theological background regarding other faiths within each respective religion, strong social, religious and authoritative circles critiquing such contacts, if not discouraging them altogether, created a formidable opposition to these networks. The articles presented in this book were presented as papers in an international workshop that took place at the Central European University in Budapest in February 2010. In it this premise was thoroughly explored across Europe in the high and later medieval period from the Iberian Peninsula to the eastern Hungarian frontier and from England to Italy. The contributors explored various angels of these phenomena through different disciplinary approaches. Ties of an economic and cultural nature are explored as well as social contacts and networks in the fields of art and the sciences, and matters of daily life.

The picture that emerges is a more nuanced and diverse then the bipolar paradigm adopted in previous scholarship.