A great number of historical examples show how desperate people sought to obtain a glimpse of the future or explain certain incidents retrospectively through signs that had occurred in advance. In that sense, signs are always considered a portent of future events. In different societies, and at different times, the written or unwritten rules regarding their interpretation varied, although there was perhaps a common understanding of these processes. This present volume collates essays from specialists in the field of prognostication in the European Middle Ages. Contributors are Klaus Herbers, Wolfram Brandes, Zhao Lu, Rolf Scheuermann, Thomas Krumpel, Bernardo Bertholin Kerr, Gaelle Bosseman, Julia Eva Wannenmacher (), Matthias Kaup, Vincent Gossaert, Jurgen Gebhardt, Matthias Gebauer, Richard Landes.

The volume is a collection of papers held at a conference devoted to the in-depth study of the history of the Roman-Iberian relationship against the backdrop of ecclesiastical and cultural structures of the Iberian Peninsula, which in many cases took on new forms in the course of the Reconquista and the consolidation of the country. The recently intensified focus on questions concerning the relationship between Rome as "center" and its European "peripheries" through research on Iberian papal documents opens up new perspectives.

In the Middle Ages Italy was one of the most diversified regions in Europe. The Italian and German authors of this volume look at the integrating and des-integrating role of the Papacy in the heterogeneous Italy of the Early and High Middle Ages. Their main source is the Italia Pontificia, the first volume of which was published in 1906. They draw a balance of what has been achieved so far, outline requirements for future research and offer exemplary, novel methods and questions that can be applied to the extensive material of the Italia Pontificia.

Erstmals werden zwei europaische Grossregionen vergleichend in den Blick genommen, so dass neue Sichtweisen auf Grenzen und ihre spezifischen Auspragungen eroffnet werden. Die paarweise Anordnung der versammelten Beitrage gewahrleistet in besonderer Weise den Vergleich und verdeutlicht Affinitaten wie Unterschiede zweier geographisch weit voneinander entfernter Raume: der Iberischen Halbinsel und Ostmitteleuropas."