ABSTRACT

Of all types of settlement, it is the town or city where one is most likely to encounter a stranger or foreigner. Such a person will often have originated from afar and be distinguished by language, physical appearance, dress, beliefs or practices, characteristics covered by the slippery modern terms ‘ethnicity’ or ‘cultural identity’. The largest, wealthiest, and most powerful or attractive towns tend to contain the greatest number, variety and proportion of strangers in their populations. Among the global metropolises of the modern world a mark of distinction is the number of languages in everyday use – well over one hundred in the cases of London or New York. Much the same was true of the towns and cities of medieval Europe, though on a lesser scale and within different social and political constraints. In western Europe notable examples of ethnic and linguistic diversity, accompanied by a striking degree of openness towards strangers, were Venice, Bruges and Antwerp, cases which indicate that port cities, or inland centres likewise engaged in facilitating commercial exchange over long distances, were especially likely to attract varied populations, if only of short-term residents. Among the towns of central and eastern Europe covered in this volume, Prague was such a place in the tenth century, while at a later date Dubrovnik resembled Venice and Lviv came to be compared with that commercial metropolis on account of the diversity of its population and the many languages spoken there (Chapters 4, 11). The attractions of such places are clear: they offered opportunities for business in which it seemed to be possible to make substantial profit, as well as employment in more secure or routine occupations such as those of labourer, craftsman or notary. Towns that were sites of rule offer similar though less varied opportunities by providing for the needs of the elite, as well as of those attracted to the place by the desire to seek political advantage, justice or protection. In the west, London and Paris, and towards the east Prague, Esztergom and Buda (Chapters 6, 11, 12, 13) occupied such positions, in addition to important roles as centres of commerce and exchange. For Christians in western and central Europe, and for many elsewhere, Rome was the key site of authority and devotion and attracted many different cultural groups, some of which maintained a more or less continuous presence in the city. Pilgrimage to Rome and other cult centres (Chapter 2), and the commerce

which often accompanied it, was an important stimulus to the movement of people and to the visible presence of strangers in many towns.1 a n ancestor of one of the German commercial families in thirteenth-century London was said first to have come to England with his wife to visit the shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury and then to have established himself in London, where Thomas had been born and where the couple themselves finally managed to conceive a child.2 In central Europe itinerant Irish monks were a stimulus to many urban monastic foundations (Chapter 2), while university cities such as Prague and Krakow attracted students and scholars from far away.