Concluding Observations: Horizontal, Hierarchical, and Community-oriented Learning in a Wider Perspective Sita Steckel Appeared in: Micol Long, Tjamke Snijders and Steven Vanderputten (ed.), Horizontal Learning in the High Middle Ages. Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Transfer in Religious Communities, Knowledge Communities, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2019, pp. 235-256 doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvnb7nbt.15 OPEN ACCESS: CC BY NC 3.0 - Download chapter at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvnb7nbt.15?refreqid=excelsior%3Afcb9df5f03b0efae64b642df16 8a1dfe&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents All rights in this article are reserved and further distribution is prohibited. Horizontal learning: What have we learned? With their scrutiny of the phenomenon of horizontal learning, the conceptual observations and case studies offered in the present volume pursue a ‘road not taken’. 1 In showing the potential of this avenue of investigation, the contributions assembled in this volume put horizontal learning on the agenda, and at the same time remind us that many social contexts – hierarchical and horizontal, formal and informal – should be routinely investigated in studies dealing with practices of knowledge transmission. While the investigation of horizontal learning diverges in interesting ways from typical approaches within the history of learning, we also encounter intriguing convergences with other recent directions. In my concluding observations, I would therefore like to discuss the potential of the horizontal learning approach, connect it to extant research paradigms, and set out some further questions prompted by this juxtaposition. Invariably selective and coloured by personal research interests, my comments are formulated from the point of view of a scholar invested in a cultural history of medieval knowledge transmission, including but also looking beyond religious communities and horizontal learning.