At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary, c.1000 c.1300 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Series Number 50)

Modern life in increasingly heterogeneous societies has directed attention to patterns of interaction, often using a framework of persecution and tolerance. This study of the economic, social, legal and religious position of three minorities (Jews, Muslims and pagan Turkic nomads) argues that different degrees of exclusion and integration characterized medieval non-Christian status in the medieval Christian kingdom of Hungary between 1000 and 1300. A complex explanation of non-Christian status emerges from the analysis of their economic, social, legal and religious positions and roles. Existence on the frontier with the nomadic world led to the formulation of a frontier ideology, and to anxiety about Hungary's detachment from Christendom, which affected policies towards non-Christians. The study also succeeds in integrating central European history with the study of the medieval world, while challenging such current concepts in medieval studies as frontier societies, persecution and tolerance, ethnicity and 'the other'. "Modern life in increasingly heterogeneous societies has directed attention to patterns of cultural interactions. While scholars have often used the binary framework of persecution and tolerance to understand such interaction, this book argues that both exclusion and integration simultaneously characterised medieval non-Christian status. It compares the place of Jews, Muslims and nomad Cumans between 1000 and 1300 in Hungary, a kingdom on the frontier of Christendom." "A complex picture of non-Christian status emerges from the analysis of economic, social, legal, and religious positions and roles. Existence on the frontier with the nomadic world led to the formulation of a frontier ideology, and to anxiety about Hungary's detachment from Christendom. The author uses a variety of written and material evidence, including Latin charters and laws, rabbinical responses, accounts by Muslim travellers, and archaeological finds, and draws upon analogies with other areas of medieval Christendom. The study also succeeds in integrating central European history into the study of the medieval world, while challenging how the concepts of frontier societies, persecution and tolerance, ethnicity, and 'the other' are currently used in medieval studies." --Book Jacket

This is a study of the economic, social, legal and religious position of three minorities within the medieval Christian kingdom of Hungary. The book demonstrates that the status of such minorities depended not simply on Christian religious tenets, but on a larger framework—including the legal and social system, economic possibilities, and conflicts between kings and the clergy. It also investigates the situation "at the gate of Christendom"—the frontier with the nomad world—and the way this affected both Christian and non-Christian interaction and Christian ideology.

Non-Christians in medieval Hungry lived in a society that was formed by a variety of influences, many of them the result of Hungry's location on the Frontier of Christendom.