Segregation - Integration - Assimilation

Given the concern today with the role and experiences of ethnic and religious minorities, and their potential for conflict and harmony with 'host communities' and with each other, there is much interest in historical aspects of these phenomena, not least as revealed in the long and complex history of European towns. Whilst most such studies focus on particular places or on particular groups, this volume presents a much broader view focusing on the medieval period, from the late antique to the fifteenth century, and covering regions from Germany to the Crimea and from Epirus to Livonia, with outliers dealing with London, Merovingian Gaul, the Early Byzantine world and the formation of Iberian urban culture after the Islamic invasion. The emphasis is on the changing nature of questions of identity, perception, legal status and relations between groups, together with the ways in which these elements were affected by the external political regimes and ideologies to which towns were inevitably subjected. Many of the towns examined were notable for the complexity of their ethnic religious composition, and for their exposure to a wide range of external influences. Overall the volume illustrates the variety of ways in which minorities found a place in towns - as citizens, outsiders, or in some other role - and how that could vary according to local circumstances or over time. By focusing on the formative period of European urban history, this volume not only reveals much about medieval society, but poses questions issues that are still valid today.