Handling Diversity. Medieval Europe and India in Comparison (13th-18th Centuries CE)

Research interest in forms and appearance of diversity has constantly increased in recent years. This also encompasses the interpretation of Medieval Europe, which is increasingly being considered as an epoch determined by dynamic processes of integration and disintegration. Sometimes diversity is even highlighted as one unique feature of Europe. Additionally, diversity and its outcome, such as competition and rivalry, are taken as explanations of European expansion in modern times. However, diversity was no unique feature of Europe, but a pervasive trait of other pre-modern civilizations, too. That's true particularly for the Indian subcontinent. For that reason, we will compare the patterns in how political, social and religious diversity was conceived and negotiated in Medieval India and Europe. The results of this discussion will be a new approach to the historical key question of how India and Europe accomplished the transition to Early Modernity.