The ways Jews were represented in several genres of medieval writing is examined. The change over time as new narratives developed is shown, and the role of visual imagery in the operation of such medieval texts is also considered.

Chapter 1 explores the motherhood in the Vita et passio Willelmi Norwicensis, a mid-twelfth century text composed by a monk of Norwich Cathedral Priory. This was a hagiographical account of the twelve-year-old William's life and his death, as his family claimed, at the hands of Jews. Motherhood was frequently invoked: in foretelling the future martyr's birth, as witness to his precocious religiosity and to enhance the pathos of a child's death. William's mother was not only his intimate nurturer, but also a weak female, whose failure betrayed William to the Jews. The chapter also considers the experience of a feminist scholar as mother: can she draw on experience to further historical understanding?

The Wiles Lectures that underpin this book were inspired by the sight of hundreds of thousands of refugees walking across Europe, which led me to create a lecture on townswomen. Every project of research is a journey of unexpected discoveries, and so this has been. We began with an appreciation of the urban landscape of Europe after 1000, with its areas of extensive and long-standing urbanisation in the south and the wave of new foundations north of the Alps. We have witnessed communities of strangers coming together in tentative sworn associations to create communes and appoint officials. Cities won freedoms from local rulers, and with these came responsibilities; so they developed rules and procedures to ensure the safety and flourishing of their communities. And since growing commerce and manufacture required both skilled and less-skilled workers, and attracted those who sought the opportunities of urban life, rules about entry and settlement soon had to be formulated, stated, and enforced. Those who lived in towns and cities reflected a great deal on the arrival of newcomers and the settlement of strangers. The reception of new residents was an act of trust, carefully considered, and always conditional. Town councils and magistrates recognised that the movement of people into their communities was an utter necessity, but also a risk.

Chapter 3 approaches the question of urban diversity and belonging by considering the experience of a small, but distinctive group, the Jews. Through the settlement of Jews, several strands delineated in Chapter 2 are exemplified and considered: after 1000 there is notable migration from southern to northern Europe, where Jews were invited by rulers to settle and fulfil particular fiscal and commercial roles, under their protection. The concept of Jewish ‘servitude’ was useful here, as it helped define the relationship between rulers and Jewish communities under their protection. In the Iberian Peninsula, Jews were treated in this manner by Christian rulers alongside Muslims; and in central Europe they settled alongside hegemonic groups of German-speaking merchants into whose hands the kings of Poland and Hungary often entrusted urban governance. Jews were embedded in the city – protected and settled – but also retained marks of difference, in their religion, ritual language, and Jewish law courts. Sometimes they were even considered as citizens of sorts, although they could not wield judicial authority. Yet later centuries see political and commercial interests, and revivalist preachers, develop anti-Jewish narratives, negotiate expulsions, and occasionally encourage violence, like the horrific killings following the Black Death in German towns. Identity and belonging are tested in the case of Europe’s Jews.

Against the background of growth in the European economy and population after 1000, the rise of towns and their distinctive cultures is considered with all its creativity and its risks. A basic chronology and analysis of urban growth is provided, with attention to the differing experiences of Europe’s regions. Among the many tasks facing those who ruled urban centres was the question of membership: who was to be allowed into the city, and on what terms? Central to civic culture was the concept of the ‘common good’, which required newcomers to settle and fill the city’s needs. Such migration supplied townspeople with expert services (in law, finance, medicine, and governance), and it drew on newcomers marked by difference – of religion and language. Some of the underlying ideas and concepts are introduced in this chapter, based on studies of migration and urban life in the period under study, and in later ones too.

In Chapter 4 we see how Europe’s women were central to urban life: within their families, as workers in production and retail, and as members of parishes. Yet their opportunities were also curtailed, as they were denied the full enjoyment of civic life. The contours of such denial differed across Europe: in the north, women often enjoyed a sort of diminished citizenship, and in the south of France they were more visible in the courts of law. Yet, like Jews and others, they were a group apart in many ways, deemed unsuitable for the exercise of public authority, for their voices to be heard, or for their claims to be made in person in urban courts. Their agency is palpable within neighbourhoods, in the running of workshops, and in the support of family businesses, especially in widowhood. They were creative in forging religious lifestyles even against parental choices and social conventions. But, like ‘strangers’, they were vulnerable too, forced to be dependent in many ways. Like all social interactions, theirs varied by class and age, but it is useful nonetheless to recognise that strangerhood can be experienced even within the town of one’s birth, the place called home.

This chapter explores the pathways by which migration was ordered and newcomers allowed to settle in Europe’s regions. It begins with dynastic polities, where rulers habitually gave privileges to favoured groups, and ordered group migration following conquests. It then considers the policies developed in cities whose relative autonomy meant they were able to attempt the regulation of entry and exit. As in other areas of urban life, they used local legislation in the form of statutes as their tool. These resulted from deliberation in councils and by urban officials, sometimes assisted by legal experts. They developed rules that aimed to keep strangers out, unless they sought to settle and could prove their use and probity. All this took place in a period of economic growth and opportunity. Throughout the fourteenth century circumstances changed, and after the Black Death (1347–51), many regions and cities were left depopulated – needing newcomers – but also economically diminished, and hence more suspicious of them. The long-term arc sees strangers become neighbours, and a reversal in civic confidence, which led to erratic policies and often to exclusionary legislation.

Most of the innovative attempts to explore in detail the religious lives of medieval lay people, particularly of people who enjoyed little fame or substance in their times, have addressed the period after 1300. Such efforts have been enabled by the documentation which created and regulated the parish – councils, canon law, episcopal registers and church-wardens accounts; by the engaging vernacular literature associated with pastoral care and private devotions; by new forms of organization created by lay people – particularly in towns and cities – for religious sociability, such as confraternities; and, more recently, by the use of liturgy and the material culture that underpinned it. Animating much of this historical work is an interest in women and gender, expressed in influential books like Caroline Bynum's study of religious women, many of them lay persons, in Holy Feast and Holy Fast.

This is not to say that religion has not received interesting treatments, or that religious life was duller in the Anglo-Norman period. Just a few years ago at the Battle conference, Hugh Thomas reflected on the sources and approaches that might best inform studies of the religion of the people between the Conquest and Lateran IV. He collected glimpses of parish life, of religious foundations, and even of guilds, in order to show that what we know of the later Middle Ages may well have existed earlier. What strikes me most forcefully about lay people's religion in that earlier period is the influence of religious houses, along with cathedrals – many of them also homes to monastic communities. Be it the cult of saints, hagiographical writing, the promotion of pilgrimage or even the support of parish life, monasteries were to the fore as producers of written works, custodians of holy relics, and magnets for religious enthusiasts both within and without their walls. Even those initiatives taken by lay people – like the creation of parishes in Lynn or Cambridge at the request of locals – had to be endorsed by them: in this case, Bishop Herbert de Losinga (d. 1119) or Barnwell priory respectively.

The Norman religious impetus energized – not without contestation and conflict – an English monastic sphere that was long-established, prestigious and wealthy.