1. No category

Religious Plurality and Interreligious Contacts
in the Middle Ages
Ein gemeinsames Spanisch-Deutsches Arbeitsgespräch
der Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel und der Fundación de Salas (Trujillo)
30.11.-02.12.2015
Org.: Prof. Dr. Ana Echevarria and Prof. Dr. Dorothea Weltecke
Outlines and purpose of the symposium
Most medieval societies were religiously plural not by choice and ideal but by nature. This is true of the
medieval societies ruled by Muslims as well as by Christians. Repeatedly, the original population was
subordinated by members of a different religion. Thus, Jews, Christians, Muslims, pagan minorities
and other ancient religious traditions like Zoroastrians, Manicheans or Buddhists were faced with the
rule of members of a different religion. Mission, social and economic attraction, and a specific set of
rules from both the ruling and the subordinate religions conditioned the relations in various ways.
Beside outright coercion the ruling religions often deliberately produced semi-permeable borders between the religions in order to incite a pull-factor. At the same time, segregation and discrimination
were established everywhere in order to restrict contact and influence. On the other hand, administrative and economic activities by members of the subordinate religions was often welcome and even
inevitable. Rights and regulations were developed and used by both dominant and subordinate religions for demarcation. Forum shopping represented an important strategy for subordinate religions to
expand their possibilities of action, despite the unequal framework conditions. Thus, religious affiliation
and identity repeatedly had to be negotiated, defined, and chosen. Internal dynamics within the different religions led to new religious groups and constellations respectively. Repeatedly religious violence
occurred between ruling and subordinate religions in one area. Outright religious wars were fought
between Christians and Muslims, but also between internal fractions of Christians and Muslims.
While the idea of a medieval period of religious unity long inhibited the investigation of the reality of
plurality in German countries, the obvious multi-religious situation of the Iberian Pensinula inspired
lively debates much earlier. The long discussed controversy on the concept of "convivencia", or coexistence, as a possible model of inter-religious cohabitation and the opportunities and limits of interreligious contacts not only on the Iberian Peninsula inspired detailed empirical research. Thus, the
debate on Spain had an important impact on the study of religious plurality in the Middle Ages in general. On the other hand, intense research on the crusades, the Mediterranean, Byzantium and the
Levant in Germany has also produced inspiring results on religious plurality in these regions.
In Wolfenbüttel 2015 specialists for the history of Spain, Sicily, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Levant and Asia shall connect the results from the empirical and methodological debates of the
preceding years in order to sketch future research avenues for comparative research. Parallels and
similar structures as well as obvious contrasts between intra-religious definitions (for example, Latin
Christian, Orthodox Christian on the one side and Shi‘a and Sunni Muslim rule on the other) make
themselves felt and invite to strive for an outline of medieval religious plurality in general. Some suggestions for the discussion shall be outlined here:
1. What are the different strategies for power, order, demarcation, exchange and identity opted
for to organise religious plurality? Which of these structures are similar, which are different? In
which way are they connected to secular historical conditions and/or to religious traditions?
2. What is the impact of inter-religious interaction on internal religious dynamics and vice versa,
and how do they influence theological doctrine?
3. Which conditions favor violence, and what acts as a check on violence? How is violence legitimated, and how is it carried out?
4. Which theoretical and empirical models and concepts appear best suited for comparative work
in this research field?
5. Given the interconnection and interdependence between members of ruling and subordinate
religions, how can historical narratives of medieval societies account for this interdependence? Still Jews, Muslims, and heretics have been as inadequately integrated into the great
narrative of European history as have been Jews and Christians into the history of Islamic
Western Asia.
In which ways do Eurasian medieval societies differ from Ancient or Modern or Eastern Asian societies
concerning their management of religious plurality?
Programm
Montag, 30.11.2015
10.00
Begrüßung und Einführung
Sina Rauschenbach, Ana Echevarria, Dorothea Weltecke
Einführung
Ana Echevarria, Dorothea Weltecke
10.30: Klaus Herbers (Department Geschichte, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg):
Christ sein im Emirat/Kalifat von Córdoba: Bedeutung und Konzeption von Heiligkeit und
Sakralität (Being Christ in the emirate/caliphate of Córdoba: The impact and concepts of
holiness and sacrality
11.15: María Ángeles Gallego (Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo, CSIC, Madrid):
Myths of the Judeo-Islamic cultural symbiosis: identical terminology, different meanings
12.00: Mittagspause
14.00: Licia di Giacinto (CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum):
Drawing the Boundary: interreligious demarcation and resistance in East Asian
14.45: Maria Gloria de Antonio Rubio (IEGPS, CSIC, Santiago de Compostela):
Power strateties and cohabitation between Jews und Christians in the Middle Ages: Galicia
15.30
Kaffeepause
16.00: Goetz König (Institut für Iranistik, FB Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften):
On the question of neo-Platonic elements in the Zoroastrian literature of the early 9th century
16.45: Raúl González-Salinero (Dept. Historia Antigua, UNED, Madrid):
Anti-Jewish Repression under the Visigothic Kingdom: Political o Religious Motivation?
18.00: Empfang / Umtrunk im Anna-Vorwerk-Haus
Stand: 23.11.2015
Dienstag, 01.12.2015
09.30: María Jesús Albarrán (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, CNRS):
La comunidad cristiana en torno a los monasterios en Egipto en los siglos VII-VIII: ¿cuestión
de obediencia o supervivencia?
10.15: Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler (Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg):
Diplomatic “initiation” of a new Coptic Patriarch in 12th century Fatimid Cairo
11.00: Kaffeepause
11.30: Johannes Pahlitzsch (Arbeitsbereich Byzantinistik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz):
The Melkites: Between Byzantines, Muslims and Crusaders
12.15: Ana Echevarria (Dept. Historia Medieval, UNED, Madrid):
Migration of Muslim Minorities in Medieval Europe: A Methodological Approach
13.00: Mittagspause
15.00: Bibliotheksführung
16.00: Kaffeepause
16.30: Olatz Villanueva (Universidad de Valladolid):
Más allá de al-Andalus. Fuentes y metodologías para el estudio de los musulmanes
castellanos
17.15: Discussion
Mittwoch, 02.12.2015
09.30:
Xavier Cassasas (Dept. Romance Languages, University of Salzburg):
La comunidad religiosa musulmana de la Corona Catalano-Aragonesa seis siglos (XI-XVII) de
existencia y convivencia en el seno de una sociedad mayoritariamente cristiana
10.15: Nikolas Jaspert (Historisches Seminar, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg):
Religious Movements in Late Medieval Aragonese Muslim Communities: Identity and
Relational Dynamics
10.45: Kaffeepause
11.15: Javier Castaño (Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo, CSIC, Madrid):
Iberian Jewries in Transition: New Perspectives
12.00: Abschlussdiskussion
12.30: Tagungsende
Stand: 23.11.2015