This event is part of the Urban Governance and Civic Participation in Words and Stone Lecture Series.
So far our series of lectures has introduced the urban environment through its modes of government, disposition of space, and the visual cues that prompted religious feeling and a sense of belonging. This lecture will consider the variety of positions experienced within the city by groups historians have called ‘strangers’ for convenience. These could range from recent immigrants from the rural hinterland, to long-standing residents whose presence in the city was marked by difference that bred a sense of impermanence. We will consider how contemporaries used the term ‘foreigner’ in their attempts to legislate a safe and thriving urban enterprise.
Please note that registration is required to attend this online lecture. Please register here.
About the speaker
Miri Rubin is Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. She received her BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her PhD from the University of Cambridge. Miri is interested in social relations within the religious cultures of medieval Europe, and has explored these in her books Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge (1987), followed by Corpus Christi. The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (1991), and Gentile Tales. The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (1999); Mother of God (2009); an edition/translation Vita et passio Willelmi Norwicensis [The Life and Passion of William of Norwich], published as a Penguin Classic in 2014; and most recently, Cities of Strangers (2020).
Image on cover: Vienna in the Nuremberg Chronicles. Source: Wikimedia Commons