It is widely accepted that the essence of a manuscript cannot be fully grasped without studying its marginalia. Glosses, the most medieval of techniques, sit on the margins of the text and clarify it, adding a whole bew dimension to it and becoming an inextricable part of its content. Similarly, no society can be fully understood without knowledge of what lies on its margins, for the outliers of any given culture provide us with just as much information as its alleged foundational principles. At a time when the Western world ponders building up walls against perceived threats and frightening differences, it seems especially important to recall that it is mostly through tearing down walls that we learned our way forward.

The congress “Living on the Edge: Transgression, Exclusion, and Persecution in the Middle Ages” aims to address the widespread medieval phenomenon of transgression as both a result of and the cause for the exclusion and persecution of those who were considered different.

The results of the 3rd ARDIT International Congress were published by De Gruyter Medieval Institute Publications in 2022 under the title:

Living on the Edge: Transgression, Exclusion and Persecution in the Middle Ages