Acculturation and Elimination: Europe's Interaction with the Other (Fourteenth - Sixteenth Century)

This article examines the cultural contact between the core countries of western Europe and the European periphery. With the examples of Caffa, Ceuta and Dublin, it identifies the different methods and patterns utilised by persons from the core countries of Western Europe upon interaction with foreign peoples before the period of early modern expansion. The various types of interaction are discussed on the basis of Tzvetan Todorov’s theses on European expansion in America. Were Europeans such successful conquerors because they were masters of differentiating techniques of transcultural hermeneutics? This is the key question we would like to address here.