A Plura Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton, ed. Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo. The Medieval Mediterranean, 138. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2024.

A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton brings together sixteen scholars whose work was influenced by Barton’s scholarship. This volume explores questions regarding historical assumptions about the Iberian Middle Ages and seeks to find new avenues for future study. In his work, Barton explored the multi-confessional reality of medieval Iberia and challenged such well-worn terms as “Convivencia” or “Reconquista.” In short, he found that the three cultures inhabiting the peninsula – Christians, Muslims, and Jews – were in contact with one another on a variety of levels with each group influencing the others, bringing about remarkable interchanges and hybrid manifestations in such areas as law, architecture, festive practices, language, literature, and philosophy. The plurality of these contacts and relations, ranging at times from direct hostilities to unique forms of cooperation, are the subjects of the essays contained in this volume. The contributions are divided into five categories and reflect Barton’s fluid approach to historical studies.