Beyond Eurocentrism and Orientalism: Revisiting the Othering of Jews and Muslims through medieval canon law

Abstract

AbstractWhile the historical turn in IR has produced significant advances in historicising both international relations and the discipline itself, the way in which the Middle Ages have been approached, studied, and referenced even in this historically-informed scholarship unwittingly works to reinforce two myths that these scholars challenge: Eurocentrism and Orientalism. The main goal of this article is to problematise the uses of the medieval that reinforce these narratives by unpacking the linguistic and conceptual constructions that underpinned the interactions between Latin Christendom and rest of the world. In doing so, it makes two closely-connected arguments: first, drawing from the abundant literature on historical sociology and Eurocentrism, it argues that we cannot understand medieval Europe, and particularly European identity-formation, without paying attention to its relations with the non-Christian world. Secondly, and most crucially, it shows that these interactions never rested on the unified idea of an ‘infidel enemy’ that seems to emanate from the IR crusading literature. Rather, an examination of the constructions of Jews and Muslims in canon law shows an extremely nuanced and varied conceptual apparatus that creates several dynamics of Othering – and consequently allows for a variety of ways of relating ranging from toleration and coexistence to conquest.