Close relationships that go beyond family and family ties have developed into a highly regarded topic in interdisciplinary research. Relationships such as friendship, patronage and social networks as variations of social ties are the result of different historical and cultural contexts and therefore constitute one essential, but still underrepresented subject of interdisciplinary research. Questions about changing friendship semantics, historical and intercultural or political practices of friendship, patronage and loyalty were the focus of an international conference, which was a critical discussion and Reassessment of values ​​and norms which, for example, constitute friendship in different cultures and historical epochs, as well as the social circumstances which cause these close relationships, aspects such as constitution and representation of body and gender and nd the emergence of trust and fraud were just as interesting as the culturally and historically different practice and semantics of friendship and patronage and their respective perception depending on their social situation in different social and historical contexts. The results of this conference are now presented in this volume.