More Africans and non-whites in Medieval Europe

There was an episode in the BBCtv's "History Cold Case" where medieval skeleton found buried near a monastery was found to be that of a negro. If I recall correctly, history experts consulted were not surprised and were of the opinion that there were quite a number of Africans in England at that time.
 
I forgot my history some there, but how Middle Age Europe was, to peoples obviously non white in modern terms? Would a christian catholic 'black' be accepted?

Yes. The King of the Kongo, who was Catholic, visited Portugal and was received with all the honors a Christian king would receive.

Racism in its modern form is from, well, the Early Modern period, and might have to do with the slave trade.
 
There was an episode in the BBCtv's "History Cold Case" where medieval skeleton found buried near a monastery was found to be that of a negro. If I recall correctly, history experts consulted were not surprised and were of the opinion that there were quite a number of Africans in England at that time.

Did they have an explanation for that?
 
Note how by example in Islam, we are told that we are all brothers (as far I know..), denunicating racism implicitly (in theory - in practice, things may be.. different, like slavery).

With Christianity, it's in theory the same thing. See the verse in Galatians about how, in Christ, there's no free or slave, male or female, Jew or Gentile, etc.

Islam is even more explicitly anti-racist than Christianity is (with the Christian Bible, you have the OT examples of whom the Israelis are not to intermarry with even if those rules aren't in the NT), but people of both faiths didn't live up to their principles.
 

Kaptin Kurk

Banned
Simple, have the cult of Saint Maurice explode, and every White Knight in Europe demanding a black sidkick for crusade or lesser endeavors. Indeed, the priest could get involved too. The specifics are up to negotiation, but I don't see it as entirely impossible that even the canonical bible could include something on him. Likely, maybe not, impossible, no. And the ripples that any greater prominance St. Maurice has to change the entire course of Western Civilization, really. Racially wise.
 
Well, I don't see it as much as a bigger cult of St. Maurice, but how about a localized militant order or two? Say the Crusaders get their turcopole auxiliaries and local Moorish Christians to form their own organizations. So yeah, we'd get a Mauritian Order or something native to the Maghreb or the Levant. Maybe the Spanish could do the same for their Mozarabs in the Reconquista.
 
Yes and no. The main source of the modern racism is the islamic world and their use of slaves.

er... No.

You see, in theory, Islam is deeply antiracist. While there was a lot of black slaves, there was others, like turks and slavs.


It was not, in theory, racialised. CULTURAL-ETHNICAL, yes, but racial, not.
 
As with many issues with Islam like misogyny not all of it is related to the religion but rather local and regional cultural attitudes.
 
As with many issues with Islam like misogyny not all of it is related to the religion but rather local and regional cultural attitudes.

But again, blacks where not hugely more or specially target of slavery; and note that slavery was in Africa before Islam came probably, and worked more along social classes, hated local ennemies and punishments - like Antiquity's - than racially, as well.

So, why Barbarossa claim racism came from ISLAMIC slavery?
 
Maybe keep Rome alive longer or kill Islam, either would keep Mediterranean trade routes open longer.
 
Yes and no. The main source of the modern racism is the islamic world and their use of slaves.

No, actually it's the New World Empires and *their* use of slaves, to justify shipping millions of people across the Atlantic and the deaths of millions of people in the process. Race as a social construct doesn't predate this, so black Africans in Europe would not have been necessarily too worth focusing on at the time.
 
There's a really obvious POD here, have the Mongols go further into Eastern/Central Europe and create a Poland-based version of the Khanate of the Golden Horde.
 
er... No.

You see, in theory, Islam is deeply antiracist. While there was a lot of black slaves, there was others, like turks and slavs.


It was not, in theory, racialised. CULTURAL-ETHNICAL, yes, but racial, not.

No, actually it's the New World Empires and *their* use of slaves, to justify shipping millions of people across the Atlantic and the deaths of millions of people in the process. Race as a social construct doesn't predate this, so black Africans in Europe would not have been necessarily too worth focusing on at the time.

No. The 'modern' use of Africans as slaves is an idea of the islamic society. They were the first who used Africans as slaves and they were worse than the Europeans because they castrated all male slaves of African origin. So some African historian (who are muslims themselves) believe that the Islam destroyed the African culture.
The use of Africans as slaves in America comes from the fact that the Church decided that the native Americans were humans and thus must not be enslaved (because Christianity prohibits the enslavement of humans). The Africans however were not included in this decision, because they were used as slaves for centuries. This was the birth of modern racism. Based on the need of cheap labour and the fact that the population of Africa was already used as slaves by the muslims.
 
No. The 'modern' use of Africans as slaves is an idea of the islamic society. They were the first who used Africans as slaves and they were worse than the Europeans because they castrated all male slaves of African origin. So some African historian (who are muslims themselves) believe that the Islam destroyed the African culture.
The use of Africans as slaves in America comes from the fact that the Church decided that the native Americans were humans and thus must not be enslaved (because Christianity prohibits the enslavement of humans). The Africans however were not included in this decision, because they were used as slaves for centuries. This was the birth of modern racism. Based on the need of cheap labour and the fact that the population of Africa was already used as slaves by the muslims.

Erm, what? Muslim slaves went on to create the first modern armies, like the Mamluks and the Janissaries, and in Muslim dynastic states slaves could have the highest political offices in those states. Slavery is always brutal but the form that brutality takes is not the same in all cultures. The use of Africans as slaves by Muslims had no effect whatsoever on the decision of the Catholic Church and Spanish encomenderos who needed labor because they were working their indigenous laborers to death.
 
As others have indicated, premodern slavery really had little to do with racism. Also, European "racism" in the modern sense really did not exist prior to the age of exploration. Before then, most East Asians, South Asians, and Africans that Europeans contacted came from societies that were as technologically sophisticated and highly organized as their own. Like all people, Europeans may well have created reasons to stereotypically hate or distrust these peoples on cultural or religious grounds, but the notion of biological inferiority was a later developmeent. Had substantial populations of black africans or middle easterners been brought into Europe by the Romans and later become Christians, I believe their presence would have been generally accepted, and that they would not necessarily be enslaved or placed into second-class citizenship because of their race alone.
 
Anyway guys what if the Crusaders managed to create local chapters or even local militant orders based on Levantine and Moorish Christians and converts.
 
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