Courses

This course investigates marginal religious groups, including apostates, heretics, Jews, magicians, Muslims, etc. against the backdrop of Christianity in medieval Western Europe. Through examining various types of primary textual and pictorial sources including papal letters, penitential handbooks, lawyers’ commentaries, autobiographies, manuscript illuminations, paintings, etc., the class will facilitate students to rethink the socio-historical situation of religious minorities, the defining of religious boundaries in history, and the echoes of such defining in the contemporary world. (No prerequisites)