Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies: Ambiguities of Hospitality in the Middle Ages, c. 1000–1350

Baltic Hospitality, W. Jezierski, S. Neuman, C. Reimann, L. Runefelt (eds.), 2022

On the medieval Baltic Rim, foreign merchants staying in town for their trade were usually called guests. Although speaking very different languages, the people of the Baltic not only used remarkably similar words to refer to strangers-gast in Middle Low German, gaester in Scandinavian languages, and goctь (gost') in Old Russian: they also used these terms in similar ways. Such terms have received little comment, and the attention they have received has often been from narrow, national points of view. 1 Yet, the linguistic similarities underlying the term guest raise questions of whether, and how far, medieval coastal societies around the Baltic Sea might have shared common conceptions of trade hospitality. This problem is too vast to be addressed in its entirety here, since it would, among other things, require precise comparative investigations

Traditional studies of royal itinerancy have depended on locating the king’s progress through his kingdom(s) as precisely as possible and it should therefore not surprise that the iter regis in pre-Conquest England has received relatively little attention, since Anglo-Saxon diplomas only rarely record their date and place of issue, making the establishment of the royal itinerary all but impossible. However, more recent studies, particularly by German scholars, have moved away from the earlier attention to the concrete details of the royal iter and focus more on the effects of itinerancy as a method of rulership, viewing itinerancy as a central part of royal ritual. This study argues that if we investigate itinerancy in tenth-century England from this standpoint, we can throw new light onto subject. Contemporary sources reveal that in England as in France and Germany the iter regis was of great importance, with symbolic acts of feasting and gift-giving accompanying royal visits. The attention given to these ritualized acts in contemporary sources suggests, moreover, that Anglo-Saxon kingship possessed an important ‘charismatic’ quality, which deserves further investigation.

Journal of Medieval History, 2011

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PhD Thesis, 2008

The research project is an investigation into the philosophy of the phenomenon of hospitality in order to identify the extent to which these are founded in ancient and classical history. The research focuses on Classical Antiquity and specifically investigates the history and philosophy of the phenomenon of hospitality within Greco-Roman texts and contemporaneous religious writings. In so doing it demonstrates how authoritative and disciplined research can make a significant contribution to the emergent research area of hospitality studies. The resulting thesis details a variety of outcomes and conclusions related to the phenomenon of hospitality, and also provides a basis for further enquiry. The research outcomes support the view that modern hospitality management literature has largely ignored this area of investigation. The principal methodological conclusion is that robust textual analysis can be undertaken within hermeneutical phenomenology and enhanced using a derived hermeneutical helix. The principal investigative outcome is that the hospitality phenomenon in its broadest sense has been recorded since the beginning of human history and it embraces a wide range of activities beyond the commercial provision of food, drink and accommodation. In particular, the essence of the hospitality phenomenon, within Classical Antiquity, is characterised by a reciprocally beneficial two-way process that takes place within three distinct and separate contexts: domestic, civil and commercial, which can also be summarised and represented by dynamic visual models. The research project is an investigation into the philosophy of the phenomenon of hospitality in order to identify the extent to which these are founded in ancient and classical history. The research focuses on Classical Antiquity and specifically investigates the history and philosophy of the phenomenon of hospitality within Greco-Roman texts and contemporaneous religious writings. In so doing it demonstrates how authoritative and disciplined research can make a significant contribution to the emergent research area of hospitality studies. The resulting thesis details a variety of outcomes and conclusions related to the phenomenon of hospitality, and also provides a basis for further enquiry. The research outcomes support the view that modern hospitality management literature has largely ignored this area of investigation. The principal methodological conclusion is that robust textual analysis can be undertaken within hermeneutical phenomenology and enhanced using a derived hermeneutical helix. The principal investigative outcome is that the hospitality phenomenon in its broadest sense has been recorded since the beginning of human history and it embraces a wide range of activities beyond the commercial provision of food, drink and accommodation. In particular, the essence of the hospitality phenomenon, within Classical Antiquity, is characterised by a reciprocally beneficial two-way process that takes place within three distinct and separate contexts: domestic, civil and commercial, which can also be summarised and represented by dynamic visual models.

Frühmittelalterliche Studien 54, 2020

The conquest and colonisation of the northeastern Baltic Rim in the 13th century durably shaped religious and ethnic identities of and relations between the native population and the arriving crusaders. This article explores the codes and displays of hospitality in the anonymous ‘Livonian Rhymed Chronicle’, which are seen here as ways of conceptualising the relationship and conflicts between the Teutonic Knights and the pagan or apostate people in Livonia. It asks which consequences the framing of the host-guest relations might have had for the self-comprehension of the chronicle’s author and his audience. The analysis of the chronicle is pursued along three lines: the first focuses on the questions of chivalry, courtesy, and conversion; the second explores different renditions of a miracle story of inhospitality from the 1220s; the third focuses on the conceptual metaphors of hospitality as a way in which the Teutonic Knights accommodated their adversaries’ viewpoints. In its conclusions, the article argues how a broad focus on the institutions, concepts, and discourses of hospitality can help account for both confrontational and amicable attitudes between the colonisers and the colonised both on the Baltic frontier and among other European frontier societies.

2023

2013

This article presents a social-scientific and realistic interpretation of the parable of the Feast. The characteristics of a pre-industrial city are used to determine the realism of the parable. The social-scientific interpretation of the parable considers meals as ceremonies. The cultural values embedded in meals, namely honour and shame, patronage, reciprocity and purity, receive attention. The social dynamics of invitations in the 1st-century Mediterranean world is used as a lens to understand the invitations as an honour challenge, and the social game of gossip is used to obtain an understanding of the excuses in the parable. The conclusion reached is that the parable turns the world in which it is told upside down. As such, the parable has something to say about the injustices that are a part of the society we live in.

2016

In the late middle ages, hundreds of pilgrims set sail from Venice to the Holy Land. Holy Places pilgrimages were for Jerusalem and the whole region (Jaffa, Bethlehem, the Jordan river) an important source of income. In Jaffa, pilgrims were controlled by officers with standard procedures, to collect due payments, prevent them from conducting espionage activity, or from getting out of the control of the mandatory guides, putting at risk their own safety. This paper deals with a little-known aspect of the medieval pilgrimage to the holy land: the disguise strategies adopted by pilgrims, in order not to be ripped off, or to pay high tolls.

in: Sari Nauman, Wojtek Jezierski, Christina Reimann, Leif Runefelt (eds.), Baltic Hospitality from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century: Receiving Strangers in Northeastern Europe (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 33-62, 2022

This chapter studies examples of confrontations between missionary guests and pagan host communities on the Baltic Rim from the late tenth to mid-twelfth centuries to uncover the spatial dynamics and intercultural articulations of hospitality in Christianization contexts. In terms of method, the chapter focuses on the functional, political, and symbolic mechanisms structuring collective production spaces of hospitality during such encounters. The addressed problems consider how spaces of hospitality were practically and discursively produced and negotiated through such meetings. It delves also into the ways arrival of this special type of Christian strangers and guests was contained in terms of power relations and security measures. And, finally, how these interactions involved and oscillated between hospitable and hostile attitudes. The results point out the deeply ambiguous, volatile, and heavily contested nature of spaces of hospitality in the Christianization of the Baltic Rim, both for missionary agents and for the host communities receiving/rejecting them.