Strangers at the Gate! Multidisciplinary Explorations of Communities, Borders, and Othering in Medieval Western Europe

S.C. Thomson, Ph.D. (2017), is Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Language and Literature at Heinrich-Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf. He has published on Old English manuscripts and poetry, on stories and imagery in the English reign of Cnut, and on the medievalist novel The Mere Wife, and has edited volumes on sensory perception and on storytelling in medieval western Europe.

Acknowledgements


List of Figures and Tables


Notes on Contributors





Introduction: Fearing, Facing, and Being a Stranger


 S.C. Thomson





1 Studying Communication in the Margins of Medieval Society


 Marco Mostert





2 HITting on Migration in the Murky Middle Ages: Advocating an Interdisciplinary Approach


 A Case Study in Old English/Old Norse Language Contact


 Florian Dolberg





3 The Language of the Mute Strangers: The Ambivalent Position of the German Language in the Late Medieval Polish Kingdom


 Anna Adamska





4 How Foreigners Entered Italian Cities in the Fifteenth Century: The Case of Bologna


 Beatrice Saletti





5 Little Flanders Beyond Wales: The Historical Context of Flemish Settlement Landscapes in South Pembrokeshire


 Gerben Verbrugghe and Wim De Clercq





6 Repopulating the City with Strangers: The Forced Colonization of Arras by the King of France Louis XI (1479–1484)


 Adrien Carbonnet





7 Strangers in the Cathedral: Place, Landscape and Nostalgia in Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de Exordio


 Euan McCartney Robson





8 Resident Stranger: Sæmundr in the Ashkenaz


 Richard North





9 The Perils of Medieval Bridges: Gregory, Grendel and Gawain


 Susan Irvine





10 Strange Confessions: Salvation and Prayers for the Dead in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogue on Miracles


 Joshua S. Easterling





11 Placing the Green Children of Woolpit


 James Plumtree





12 Afterword


 Sherif Abdelkarim





Bibliography


Index