ABSTRACT
The chapter sketches out some of the thematic fields in medieval history that have been, since the 1990s, increasingly used as important frames for exploring identities. They shall be introduced against the background of recent theoretical and methodological debates in cultural history and their interdisciplinary legacies (e.g. from cultural anthropology, sociology, or cultural studies). Identity and related concepts such as community, otherness, and diversity, in turn, are closely connected to thematic and conceptual issues discussed in other chapters of this volume, for instance those on symbolic communication, cultural encounters, and translations.
