In this Book
- Purity Lost: Transgressing Boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1000–1400
- Book
- 2006
- Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Series: The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science
summary
Purity Lost investigates the porous nature of social, political, and religious boundaries prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean—from the Black Sea to Egypt—during the Middle Ages. In this intriguing study, Steven A. Epstein finds that people consistently defied, overlooked, or transcended restrictions designed to preserve racial and cultural purity in order to establish relationships with those different from themselves. These mixed relationships—among people who did not share language, creed, or skin color—undermined the pervasive claims of purity. They forced people to reflect on their own identities and the bonds—whether social, political, religious, or racial—that defined their lives. Drawing on examples from daily life and interstate politics, Epstein takes a close look at the renegades and rule-breakers of this era. He explores race, master/slave relationships, diplomatic relations between Christian Italians and Muslim Turks, religious conversions from Christian to Muslim and vice versa, and religious boundaries of the human and the angelic. Epstein reveals the modern view of cultural, ethnic, and religious purity in the early modern Mediterranean as a mirage, and he offers new insights into how present-day conceptions about creed, color, ethnicity, and language originated.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Introduction
- pp. 1-8
- Chapter 3: Treaties and Diplomacy
- pp. 96-136
- Chapter 4: Renegades and Opportunists
- pp. 137-172
- Chapter 5: Human and Angelic Faces
- pp. 173-203
- Conclusion
- pp. 204-207
- Selected Bibliography
- pp. 233-242
Additional Information
ISBN
9780801892127
Related ISBN(s)
9780801884849
MARC Record
OCLC
310124074
Pages
264
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No