Eighteen studies, many based on archival evidence or new methodologies, some proceeding from novel angles, explore the history and culture of Iberia, Italy, and the Mediterranean World in the Middle Ages.
The studies were originally presented at the 27th International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in 1992, and have been collected in honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., the distinguished medievalist and historian of Mediterranean Spain. Most of the studies mirror the honoree's scholarly interests: Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations in medieval Iberia, the economy and society of the Mediterranean World, religious polemic and ecclesiastical history, and medieval personalities and institutions.
Ten of the studies concern aspects of cultural symbiosis or inter-religious relations in a pluri-ethnic society; and at least an equal number relate to the literary and social history of the Catalan-speaking lands of Mediterranean Spain.