Being a Neighbor: Ideas and Ideals of Neighborliness in the Medieval West

Abstract

This essay takes stock of current scholarship on neighbors in the Middle Ages to think through medieval understandings of the notion of neighborliness. When historians invoke the ideas of neighbors and neighborliness, they mean something beyond the people who lived in adjoining buildings or on adjacent plots of land. When medieval people called someone a neighbor the label conveyed a set of obligations, behaviors, and expectations, rooted in the idea that neighbors were among the group of people who were privy to the intimacies of each others' lives, at times both monumental and mundane. Medieval neighborliness was not uncomplicated or understood as unequivocally positive of course. Neighbors were not always a source of unconditional support or love. Despite a Christian rhetoric that emphasized a love of one's neighbor as a vehicle for loving God, medieval studies have suggested that the figure of the neighbor was, in fact, a source of danger and disquiet. This notion of neighborliness as a source of unease explains, perhaps, why scholars of medieval religion and religious interaction showcase some of the most fruitful uses of the concept. This article considers how scholars have accessed medieval notions of neighbors and neighborliness in their exploration of medieval community.