Summary Although 'Otherness' is an extremely common phenomenon in every society, related research is still at its beginnings. 'Otherness' in the Middle Ages is a versatile and complex theme that covers a great number of different aspects, facets, and approaches: from non-human monsters and cultural strangers from remote places up to foreigners from another country or another town; it can refer to ethnic, cultural, political, social, sexual, or religious 'Otherness', inside or outside one's own community. In any case, however, 'Otherness' is a subjective phenomenon depending on personal views and ascriptions, an issue of 'imagination' and experience rather than 'reality'. There is neither one single model of alterity nor is 'Otherness' a stable phenomenon, but it changes over time and according to the cultural context. All this calls for methodological reflection and needs thorough investigation. The methodological introduction and the 18 contributions of this volume demonstrate the great diversity of the theme and its different manifestations and perspectives. They tackle the problem from distinct angles and disciplines (history, art history, archaeology, literary history, and philology) in a wide chronological and thematic frame, using different methodological approaches, dealing with different areas (from Northern and Southern Europe to Byzantium and India), perspectives (including law, social order, the past, a sea), and diverse kinds of sources. They examine all kinds of 'Otherness' mentioned above, highlight demarcation and rejection, aversion or acceptance, assimilation and integration, thus relativizing a strict dichotomy between 'the Self' and 'the Other' or between inside and outside. This volume is so far the most comprehensive attempt to tackle the huge problem of 'Otherness' in the Middle Ages. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The Many Facets and Methodological Problems of 'Otherness' ? HANS-WERNER GOETZ AND IAN WOOD The Mediterranean Other and the Other Mediterranean: Perspectives of Alterity in Medieval Studies?NIKOLAS JASPERT Strangers in the House of Israel: Confronting the Problems of Inner Diversity in Jewish Communal Ordinances at the End of the Middle Ages?MARTIN BOR SEK Between a Rock and a Hard Place? South-Italian Portrayals of Franks and Byzantines in the Ninth Century?CLEMENS GANTNER The Construction of Allegiance and Exclusion in Erchempert's Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum?SOPHIE GRUBER Other Genders, Other Sexualities: Crises of Identity in Medieval French Ovidian Narratives?SYLVIA HUOT The Jew as the 'Other' in Word and Deed?ASTRID KHOO Layers of 'Otherness': Appearance Defining and Disguising 'Otherness' in Byzantine Monasticism?NIKE KOUTRAKOU The 'Others' from Within: Herders between Rural Communities and Venetian Governance on Late Medieval Kor?ula?FABIAN K MMELER Assimilating 'Otherness' in Early Islam?EDUARDO MANZANO MORENO The Familiar Stranger: Biblical Perception and Depiction of Muslims in Christian Chronicles of the Iberian Peninsula, c.900?PATRICK S. MARSCHNER Not 'the Other': Barbarians and the End of the Western Roman Empire?RALPH W. MATHISEN How 'Other' Was the Viking Otherworld??MEGHAN MATTSSON MCGINNIS Otherness as an Ideal: The Tradition of the 'Virtuous' Indians?YU ONUMA Distinctive Signs and Otherness: The Depiction of Prophets, in the Late Fourteenth Century in the Cathedral of Toledo (Spain)?MARIA PORTMANN 'It Was the Law Back Then': The Viking Age as the Other in Medieval Scandinavian Legal Thought?ROLAND SCHEEL The Other- Part of the World for Late Medieval Latin Christendom?FELICITAS SCHMIEDER The Muslim Archother and the Royal Other: Aristocratic Notions of Otherness in Fourteenth-Century Portugal?TIAGO JO O QUEIMADA E SILVA 'Otherness' Within? The S mi in Medieval Scandinavian Law?MIRIAM TVEIT General Index Index of Names and Subjects Related to Otherness