• 1 We would like to express our gratitude to Jessica Tearney-Pearce (St. John’s College, University of (...)
• 2 J. H. Arnold, Belief and Unbelief..., p. 106.

1Visibility, that is to say, how one presents themself and how one is perceived, is an important marker of identity1. During the Middle Ages, religion was also a key element in a person’s life. Religion encompassed moral and doctrinal implications, promised salvation or condemnation for individuals and groups, and shaped communities. It also contributed to the form of laws by which communities were ruled, as well as their ways of interacting with others and among themselves2. Consequently, a person’s religion contributed to defining their position in society, their visibility, and, in many ways, conditioned how their interactions with adherents of other religions, that is interreligious contact, took place.

• 3 For example, Melkites thought that the language they used for prayer was in itself holy (J. Pahlitz (...)
• 4 In particular, the call for prayer was often a point of contention between Muslims and Christians ( (...)
• 5 In the many documents from the Cairo Genizah arranged by Shlomo Dov Goitein, it is only once that a (...)

2Visibility as it is understood for this monographic issue encompasses all perceptible aspects of a person or their actions. It is, in this sense, a very wide concept that extends beyond the merely physical. Although the visual aspect first comes to mind in the analysis of how religious groups became visible, the audible component was also important through for example language3, and calls to prayer4. As such, “religious noise” was perceived and regulated during the Middle Ages. It was also denied, hidden, or not deemed worthy of mention5. Other aspects of religion, which influenced visibility include, for instance, that belonging to a certain religion had implications for the way that a person did business, as well as for the kinds of bonds they formed.

• 6 The relevant definitions are “the quality or state of being visible” and “capability of being readi (...)

3There are many definitions of the word “visibility”, but the one provided by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary6 contains two aspects that are fundamental to the subject at hand: visibility is the state or fact of being visible; and also it is the capability of being readily noticed. One meaning puts the stress on the observed object itself (being visible) and the other on the observer (being noticed). Distinguishing this duality is significant for historical research because a significant temporal distance separates the researcher as observer from the observed objects (people in the past), and the historian’s contemplation is not a direct one, but rather is filtered by the surviving sources. Both of these limit the historian’s capacity for observation and interpretation of the observed.

• 7 For the whole complex, see with many examples: E. Haverkamp, “Jewish Images...”.

5Both aspects go hand in hand most of the time; roughly speaking: the more visible something was at the time, the more visible it is to historians now. However, there are many ways in which this correlation may not apply, and circumstances in which the contemporary reality and the picture of it provided by extant evidence diverge. Likewise, images, signs and other perceptible elements could become detached from the community to which they had originally been associated. For example, visual features of Central European coins from the early and high Middle Ages suggest that they were made by Jews, since they bore Hebrew letters even though they were struck on behalf of the Christian overlords and for the use of everyone regardless of their religion. The effect of reminding the users of the coins of a special “Jewish expertise” remained, even when the Jews were not engaged in minting anymore7. Thereby, Jews were only imagined to be visible and a deeper layer of presence is constituted.

• 8 Weinryb, for Poland in premodern times, made a difference between “The Actual Jew” and “The Theolog (...)
• 9 See Y. Friedman, “Christian Hatred...”, especially at p. 193 (with concise wording). See furthermor (...)

6We encounter another deep layer of the presence of Jewish visibility in Christian theology8, which also could have shaped ideas about Jews living next to non-Jews. Theologically based anti-Judaism has – unsurprisingly, but not often with evidentiary bases – been postulated for areas in which no actual Jews were present9. Influences of ecclesiastical attitudes towards Jews and Muslims are best evidenced in the impositions of rules on clothing following the Fourth Lateran Council. Nevertheless, the actual impact of this on everyday life should be questioned. Rules of dress were renewed again and again but their practical application remained dependent on secular implementations of canon law.

• 10 A good example has been analysed by B. Beinhauer-Köhler, “Ritual performances...”.
• 11 O. Remie-Constable, To live like a Moor..., analyses this kind of targeting in relation to Muslims (...)

7Religious affiliation has traditionally revealed itself in particular ways, be that through images, structures, gestures, sounds, or even types of behaviour. During the Middle Ages – although not only then – these manifestations were deeply intertwined with cultural contexts and with political power. The particularities of the perceptible components that can be linked to one’s religion were fundamental to the construction of individual and group identity, either through self-definition or imposition by others. That led, for example, to behaviours associated with religion that had a strong political component attached to them10, or, as the Inquisitorial records regarding former Muslims and Jews in late medieval and Early Modern Spain show, to the establishment of an equivalence between customs and appearance with religious attribution. For these reasons, external appearance – especially but not exclusively clothes and hairstyle – and the manifestation of cultural differences associated with religion were traditionally targeted to ensure the preservation of one’s own identity and visual distinction from others11.

• 12 In multireligious contexts, outward manifestations attached to a religion that was predominant and/ (...)
• 13 B. Franco Llopis and A. Urquízar-Herrera, “Introduction”, p. 2, remark on the use of the physical d (...)
• 14 Several examples can be found B. Franco Llopis and A. Urquízar-Herrera (eds.) Jews and Muslims...

8In this sense, observing the measures by which and terms according to which religious groups distinguished themselves and were free to exteriorise their singularity on their own terms, can become a useful base from which to evaluate the flexibility/inflexibility of interreligious coexistence12. Moreover, to self-presentation, and imposed visibility or invisibility, a third axis can be added to the analysis: the projection of a constructed image by third parties. In this respect, visibility could also be easily weaponised. Let us not forget how images and stereotyping has been used for a long time as a tool to promote certain discourses of rejection13 or promoting the alleged superiority of one’s own religion14. This is especially true for stereotyped representation of religious groups, which, in turn, is usually not accurate.

• 15 B. Franco Llopis and A. Urquízar-Herrera, “Introduction”, p. 8. On this aspect, it has been remarke (...)
• 16 For example, the European pilgrim Felix Fabri, upon arrival to Jerusalem in the last quarter of the (...)
• 17 J. R. Christophersen, “‘Under the crozier...”, pp. 56 and 60–61.

9Nevertheless, religion is by far not the only factor in defining perceptible traits of a group and neither is it always the main distinguishing feature. Even within one religious affiliation, geography and chronology also are important for how people present themselves15. Likewise, religious difference was not always obvious, neither to outsiders16 nor even to adherents of the same religious group. Repeated efforts to enact legislation aimed towards enforcing distinctive signs, speak clearly of this ambivalence. In addition, different levels of visibility could generate internal disparity within a community that was perceived from outside as one group but clearly contained more complexity. For example, despite sharing religious affiliation and being considered as one group by Christians, some Jews in the Middle Rhine valley, Germany, around 1400 may have considered that their brothers-in-faith from other nearby towns held different statuses to themselves, as legal and economic conditions changed from one dominion to the next, whether in secular lordships or ecclesiastical territories17.

• 18 For example, the ordinances issued in the general chapter of the Order of Santiago of 1440 contain (...)
• 19 The Sachsenspiegel, a 13^th century Saxon law book in some of the German speaking lands, for example (...)

13Being perceptible, either on purpose or by accident, permeates into every aspect of life and leaves researchers with reflections about “expected” or “unexpected” visibility. Both visibility and invisibility can serve as a protection against or as a justification for aggression related to religious violence. For example, ritualised violence against Jews was sometimes linked to their visibility during religiously charged times18. On the other hand, a clearly perceptible legal status could have protective effects, as we see in Central Europe19, and as was connected to dhimmi status under Islam.

• 20 Canon 68 stated, “In nonnullis provinciis a christianis Iudæos seu Saracenos habitus distinguit div (...)
• 21 For example, Christians should not force Jews to deliver an oath in front of the Thora Ark in 15th (...)

15On the one hand, visibility, when imposed from the outside, was a very important tool for marginalising groups that were perceived as foreign and/or a possible threat. For example, during the Fourth Lateran Council, a canon was issued stating that Jews and Muslims should wear distinctively visible signs on their clothes so that they could not possibly be mistaken for Christians20. In these cases, visibility carried the implication of marking the other as inferior, not trustworthy, or to be controlled, and the attempts to legislate were usually accompanied by other limiting regulations throughout medieval Europe21. These regulations affected actual people who encountered each other.

• 22 I. Resnick, “The Jew’s Badge”. Also, on the implementation of the regulations of appearance on Musl (...)
• 23 Ana Echevarria explores this phenomenon in her article about Christian towns of the Iberian Peninsu (...)
• 24 Comparable effects go with re-dedications of mosques as churches (as widely attested in the Iberian (...)

16While singling people out individually by forcing them to wear distinctive signs on their clothes, and limiting the types of materials and adornments that they could wear22, there is little doubt that some of the segregating measures taken against Muslims and Jews in the Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula also targeted the visibility of these religious groups as a collective by limiting their visual and audible projection23. Beyond the religious motivations and implications, these measures were also a way to display dominance over the members of the other religions. The use of spoliated headstones – a phenomenon we observe during the later Middle Ages throughout Europe when Christians used Jewish and Muslim tombstones as building material – therefore inverts the same system of limiting visibility by increasing the perceptibility of religiously relevant artefacts in new contexts; in this example, under domination and suppressed24.

• 25 Being publicly seen in church or in the synagogue was important for women who had given birth and t (...)

17On the other hand, differentiated visibility could also be created from within. In this process, it becomes clear that individual visibility or invisibility within one’s own community in its places of assembly was crucial for sustaining the sense of belonging and therefore it was given significant weight25. It also allowed for a delicate balance between the visual particularities generated by one's own religion and the assimilation of traits that were common to the rest of society. In this sense, people of different religions shared fashions with the society in which they lived. Therefore, they were bound to appear to the outside as a mixture of their own particular attributes and characteristics common to the whole of that society.

• 26 For example, the monographic issue edited by A. Cuffel, L. Di Giacinto and V. Krech, Senses, Religi (...)

27The study of visibility from different perspectives has proven to continue to be a fruitful field for research. The broad strokes, as well as the subtle nuances, that the essays bring out enrich our understanding of visibility and invisibility. Although the resulting picture is not by any means complete, it is our hope that it be useful to spark further and very necessary discussion on the topic. It will be in line with the advances and new developments in this direction, as shown by the fact that volumes recently published or that have been announced on the socio-historical relevance of perceptibility include new areas such as sound studies.26 This constitutes a very welcome widening of the scope of historical research that doubtlessly will enrichen the analysis of matters of religious difference, and will open new paths by which to get to the core of interreligious encounters in many facets.