This collection of essays investigates the fascination, influence, and tolerances of the foreign "other" - non-Europeans, non-whites, non-Christians, gays and lesbians, peoples cast outside the pale, and physically or mentally impaired people - during the Middle Ages in Europe.

This collectoion brings together an outstanding group of historical, cultural, and literary scholars to investigate the complicated, nuanced, and often surprising union and desire and dread associated with the figure of the foreign Other in the Middle Ages--represented variously by Muslims, Jews, heretics, pagans, homosexuals, lepers, monsters, and witches. Exploring the diverse manifestations of the foreign in medieval literature, historical documents, religous treatises, and art, these essays mine the traces of unprecedented encounters in which fascination and fear meet.