How did Eastern Orthodox and other communities in the Late Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Mediterranean navigate shifting political structures, contested identities, and cultural boundaries while remaining part of a shared, interconnected world?
This volume brings together, for the first time, the three interrelated concepts of identities, boundaries, and connectivities as tools for exploring the religious, cultural, and political fabric of the Eastern Mediterranean from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. The chapters examine how individuals and groups perceived themselves and others in contexts of coexistence, conflict, and exchange; how symbolic and doctrinal boundaries were drawn, challenged, or blurred; and how networks of mobility—involving people, objects, texts, and practices—shaped a dynamic and often overlapping ecumene. From monastic networks and theological debates to linguistic frontiers, artistic interactions, and the legacy of Byzantium under Latin and Ottoman rule, the volume offers new methodological and historiographical approaches.
The book will be of particular relevance to students and scholars interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, the Crusades and the Latin East, identity formation, and the cultural history of a multi-faith and multi-cultural Mediterranean world in transition.