Howard Burton - Religion and Culture: A Historians Tale: A Conversation with Miri Rubin

How does an Israeli chemistry student wind up becoming one of the worlds foremost authorities on religious culture in the Middle Ages? Intriguingly, the answer has much more to do with pressures of the present than you might think.

Miri Rubins undergraduate studies were suddenly interrupted by the Yom Kippur War, so instead of continuing her scientific studies she found herself volunteering in the orthopaedic ward of a Jerusalem hospital. When it was finally time to return to university, her worldview had been irrevocably altered.

I remember looking at the annual catalogue containing all the courses offered at Hebrew U, which is a great university. And I just fell on history, saying to myself, Actually, with wars, suffering, loss and all that makes you think about, I really want to understand. And I really want to understand in a way that only history can give me. So I enrolled in history.

And then, as so often happens, a particularly influential teacher took over.

Id never studied the Middle Ages before. And amongst all the excellent teachers I had that year, one simply soared. Hes a totally amazing medievalist, still active. His name is Ron Barkai.

We were studying the Crusades; and in addition to his deep knowledge of the Crusades he also had the advantage of knowing Islam culture very well because his family had come from North Africa and he had excellent Arabic.

So the whole vantage point we had on the Crusades was not as had traditionally been taughtthis sort of amazing medieval phenomenon, one of the great achievements and events of its timebut actually much more like what we might call today a cultural encounter, or perhaps even a clash of civilizationssomething much, much more textured.

And I remember that in the first class we looked at the attitude to war in Islam and Christianity. We read a bit of the Korannowadays, its par for the course, but at the time, in the seventies, it certainly wasnt generally done. But he did it. That was my introduction to medieval history; and I was absolutely hooked.

Now an internationally renowned professor of medieval and early modern history at Queen Mary University of London with a wide range of deeply influential publications on topics ranging from the history of the Virgin Mary to the Eucharist to an analysis of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Middle Ages, Miri has consistently turned her attention to examining the unique impact that religious culture has on a wide variety of people in different times and places.

I wanted to understand to what extent living within a religious culture makes people do or not do things, whether there is any type of structure to it and how it changes over time. I see religion as a sort of historical force that interacts with other things. Its a cultural force. Its not something that obeys other rules, as it were.

And in order to best comprehend that force, Mary insists, its vital to develop the broadest possible perspective of our surrounding environment, regularly urging her students to twin detailed scholarly investigations with a deliberate appreciation of other cultural forces.

When I was talking about the making of a historian, I alluded to the fact that going off to seminars, apparently not on your topic, is a good thing. I would say, even more. You have to read widely. You have to listen to music. You have to go to the theatre. Youve got to talk to people. Its really, really important.

That extra hour of reading, yet another article in the evening, rather than watching a film or reading a book or even cooking a mealI think its a false economy. You need to hear sounds and have thoughts that arent from the echo chamber of your scholarship.

While Miris route to becoming an eminent medieval scholar might seem particularly unusual and serendipitous, a closer examination reveals a common theme throughout: a steadfast determination to increase her awareness of the world around her, both past and present.

These days, some might label such an approach as interdisciplinary. But for Miri, its simply the only way to achieve genuine cultural understanding.