The collective scientific work “Medieval Europe: East and West” opens a series of publications by the Laboratory of Medieval Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, dedicated to the eternal and at the same time inexhaustible topic of domestic medieval studies: the relationship between the Latin West of the European subcontinent and the Orthodox (and partly Muslim) East. From the endless variety of possible subjects, only those that have not yet been deeply studied have been selected for this publication. Firstly, marriage strategies and naming strategies are analyzed among the ruling elite of different societies of Northern and Eastern Europe - from Scandinavia to Georgia. Secondly, the circulation of texts and ideas in the Mediterranean region is traced using the example of the distribution of genuine and imaginary works of Aristotle. Thirdly, a comparison is made of the models of attitude towards non-believers developed in the Latin West and the Orthodox East. Fourthly, it analyzes the ambassadorial ceremonies (and their descriptions by interested witnesses) at the meeting of representatives of the East and the West in 1576. And finally, in conclusion, it shows how classical Russian medieval studies of the 19th–20th centuries. itself took shape in the course of understanding the question of the historical relationship between the East and West of Europe. For historians, philologists, religious scholars and political scientists.