Hospitalitas: A Virtue in Danger. Semantic Observations on the Use of hospitalitas in Latin Narratives Sources, 1000–1400 - Dataset

Many of our oldest and best-loved stories are about killing guests and  betraying hosts. Hospitality is celebrated, in medieval texts and in medieval  studies, as a way of binding individuals together and strengthening social  cohesion, but both the practice and narration of hospitality was shot through  with ambiguity and ambivalence.

This volume shifts the scholarly gaze from the high table — where kings,  queens, and honoured guests are graciously served by skilled servants — to the  shadowy corners of the hall, the places where gossip and complaint are  exchanged, where outlaws hide under the guise of hospitality, where hostages and  troublesome strangers are benched, where the light from the hall-fire reflects  on drawn blades: prompting difficult reflections on the processes of extraction  and predation that provided the material foundations for the feast.

The chapters in Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies range from Silk  Road caravanserais in Armenia and crusader relations in the Latin East, through  ambassadorial and papal receptions in the Mediterranean, treatment of merchants  and the poor in Scandinavia, elite feasts in Latin Europe, to hosting of outlaws  and hostages in Eurasia. The authors explore ambiguities of hospitality in the  Middle Ages through a wide range of sources and methodological approaches.

Tim Geelhaar, 'Hospitalitas: A Virtue in Danger. Semantic Observations on the Use of hospitalitas in Latin Narratives Sources, 1000–1400', CURSOR, 45 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2025), pp. 39–73