Purity Lost

Steven Epstein's argument rests on the observation that medieval Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the eastern Mediterranean all idealised purity, and sought to preserve the boundaries of ‘religion, language, and race/color' (p. 9) that defined it. Yet, while each tradition desired to maintain distinctions between themselves and others, these boundaries were always permeable and often transgressed. All the evidence provided here on the transgression of boundaries, the perception of differences, and the existence of mixed relationships confirms the impression that, although medieval people shared similar visions of purity, this ideal was never actualised. Whether, therefore, it could ever have been ‘lost' remains an unaddressed question. This study concentrates on the eastern Mediterranean, and primarily on the Aegean region. The period, though officially limited to the centuries from 1000 to 1400, also includes earlier medieval sources as well as early-modern materials. Although a small number of Muslim and Jewish sources are included in the discussion, the primary attention is on Christian materials—including a wide range of diplomatic, hagiographic, historical, artistic, and commercial texts—originating in Byzantium and the Latin West

Ancient history · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics · Literature · Marine transgression · Middle Ages · Theology · Vision · Byzantine Studies and History · Geology · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Medieval History and Crusades · Paleontology · Philosophy

• Domestic Slavery in Syria and Egypt, 1200–1500

  Jan Hinrich Hagedorn•Domestic Slavery in Syria and…•2019

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