The Parable of the Three Rings and the Idea of Religious Toleration in European Culture

Introduction: The Medieval Underpinnings of an Enlightened Idea

Chapter 1: The Earliest versions of the Three Rings Parable

1.1    Patriarch's Timothy's eighth-century 'Allegory of the Pearl'

1.3    An inverted story: the legend of the Three Impostors

1.4    The parable and interreligious encounter in Medieval Spain

Chapter 2: The Rings Parable in Latin Europe

2.1 The Exemplum of Etienne de Bourbon

2.2 Catholics encounter the religions of the East

     2.2.1 Interreligious discourse in the Mongol Court

2.3 Western European reflections on religious truth

Chapter 3: The Evolution of the parable in the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries

3.1 The parable at the end of the thirteenth century

3.1.1  Li dis dou vrai aniel and

3.1.2  The Gesta Romanorum

3.2 The early Renaissance versions of the parable in Italy as an expression of religious relativism

3.2.2 Bosone da Gubbio's  Fortunatus Siculus

3.2.3 Boccaccio's Decameron: inspiration and influence

3.3 After Decameron: between conformity and tolerance

3.4 Religious discussion between the Byzantine emperor and a Muslim, 1391

Conclusion: Religious Encounter and religious openness