4 ms·

There were black peoples, or at least Middle Eastern, all over Medieval Europe. The Arthurian cycle has moorish knights. When Eleanor of Aquitaine married the E

by simonh 4y ago

There were black peoples, or at least Middle Eastern, all over Medieval Europe. The Arthurian cycle has moorish knights. When Eleanor of Aquitaine married the English king, part of her dowry was a North African city. Are we to believe none of them travelled to England? Berber pirates raided Iceland for slaves so there were whites people in Africa, why not black people in Europe? Some people travelled a lot. The Saxons sent emissaries to what’s now Sri Lanka, while an Armenian Christian monk born in Beijing met the pope and Edward I. In Middle Earth the Numenorians had extensive colonies in the far south of the continent. This obsession with racial segregation is absurd and utterly ahistorical.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
There is no obsession about racial segregation and I don’t care at all about the fictional universe of Tolkien. I can tell you that the first time people saw black people in my very small hometown in the French countryside during the Second World War, they stopped to ask questions and at least one photo was taken. It’s not racism. It was just completely out of the ordinary which is exactly how I imagine seeing black people in the middle of a tavern would happen in medieval Europe.
- simonh 4y ago
  I think it very much depends on the tavern. In many places sure, it would be unknown. Could a random village have a black resident, maybe a sailor or member of a trade expedition that happened to settle there? Absolutely. Adventure fiction is often centred on unusual characters with exceptional back stories or circumstances, and people like that did exist.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    > Could a random village have a black resident, maybe a sailor or member of a trade expedition that happened to settle there? Absolutely. No, because they would have died from the novel diseases the village would have had. There's a reason why when Europeans went anywhere they died by the boat load and pretty much everyone they brought back to Europe also died. It's always fun to remember that Pocahontas died in England after being there less than a year.
    - simonh 4y ago
      The Middle East and North Africa had frequent contact with Europe. When thousands of Europeans went on crusade to the Middle East they didn’t all drop dead. The Romans went everywhere. Berber pirates even raided for slaves as far north as Iceland. This is simply not an issue. The Americas was a different situation, they’d been isolated from Eurasia for tens of thousands of years. In Middle Earth the Numenorians had extensive colonies in the far south, and also had contact with the Elves and their ancestral homelands in the northern regions. Again, just not an issue.
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        The middle east is _not_ sub Saharan Africa.
        simonh 4y ago
        So what? The same applies. Sub Saharan Africa had frequent contact with North Africa and the Middle East. The Romans sent expeditions, and Arab traders travelled across much of the continent. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#History The Egyptians sponsored a Phoenician expedition that circumnavigated Africa. Finds at the ruins at Great Zimbabwe include items from as far away as China. Check out this mural of the Roman emperor Severus and his wife from the 2nd century, and tell me again how there were no black people in Europe as long ago as Medieval times. https://www.history.co.uk/article/severus-rome’s-first-african-emperor https://www.history.co.uk/article/severus-rome’s-first-afric... And again, we know for a fact from Tolkien that the Numenorians ranged from the north all the way to the far southern continent, and the oceans of the Far East.
        thrown_22 4y ago
        Yes, and you keep ignoring the death rates for those expeditions.
renox 4y ago
OTOH, I remember a black colleague created quite a sensation when he traveled in a non-touristic part of China.. That said, 'historical fictions' are usually much more fiction than historical.
- simonh 4y ago
  Why go to fiction when we have real history, like Yasuke the ‘black samurai’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    “When Yasuke was presented to Oda Nobunaga, the Japanese daimyō thought that his skin must have been colored with black ink. Nobunaga had him strip from the waist up and made him scrub his skin.[22] These events are recorded in a 1581 letter of the Jesuit Luís Fróis to Lourenço Mexia, and in the 1582 Annual Report of the Jesuit Mission in Japan, also by Fróis. These were published in Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (1598), normally known simply as Cartas.[23][24] When Nobunaga realized that the African's skin was indeed black, he took an interest in him.” You both seem in agreement actually.
    - simonh 4y ago
      Oh sure, it was incredibly unusual but once everyone got used to him being around after a few years, or a generation if he had kids, the novelty would wear off. I just don’t think it matters.

by simonh 4y ago

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

There is no obsession about racial segregation and I don’t care at all about the fictional universe of Tolkien. I can tell you that the first time people saw black people in my very small hometown in the French countryside during the Second World War, they stopped to ask questions and at least one photo was taken. It’s not racism. It was just completely out of the ordinary which is exactly how I imagine seeing black people in the middle of a tavern would happen in medieval Europe.

simonh 4y ago
I think it very much depends on the tavern. In many places sure, it would be unknown. Could a random village have a black resident, maybe a sailor or member of a trade expedition that happened to settle there? Absolutely. Adventure fiction is often centred on unusual characters with exceptional back stories or circumstances, and people like that did exist.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  > Could a random village have a black resident, maybe a sailor or member of a trade expedition that happened to settle there? Absolutely. No, because they would have died from the novel diseases the village would have had. There's a reason why when Europeans went anywhere they died by the boat load and pretty much everyone they brought back to Europe also died. It's always fun to remember that Pocahontas died in England after being there less than a year.
  - simonh 4y ago
    The Middle East and North Africa had frequent contact with Europe. When thousands of Europeans went on crusade to the Middle East they didn’t all drop dead. The Romans went everywhere. Berber pirates even raided for slaves as far north as Iceland. This is simply not an issue. The Americas was a different situation, they’d been isolated from Eurasia for tens of thousands of years. In Middle Earth the Numenorians had extensive colonies in the far south, and also had contact with the Elves and their ancestral homelands in the northern regions. Again, just not an issue.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      The middle east is _not_ sub Saharan Africa.
      - simonh 4y ago
        So what? The same applies. Sub Saharan Africa had frequent contact with North Africa and the Middle East. The Romans sent expeditions, and Arab traders travelled across much of the continent. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#History The Egyptians sponsored a Phoenician expedition that circumnavigated Africa. Finds at the ruins at Great Zimbabwe include items from as far away as China. Check out this mural of the Roman emperor Severus and his wife from the 2nd century, and tell me again how there were no black people in Europe as long ago as Medieval times. https://www.history.co.uk/article/severus-rome’s-first-african-emperor https://www.history.co.uk/article/severus-rome’s-first-afric... And again, we know for a fact from Tolkien that the Numenorians ranged from the north all the way to the far southern continent, and the oceans of the Far East.
        thrown_22 4y ago
        Yes, and you keep ignoring the death rates for those expeditions.

renox 4y ago

OTOH, I remember a black colleague created quite a sensation when he traveled in a non-touristic part of China.. That said, 'historical fictions' are usually much more fiction than historical.

simonh 4y ago
Why go to fiction when we have real history, like Yasuke the ‘black samurai’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  “When Yasuke was presented to Oda Nobunaga, the Japanese daimyō thought that his skin must have been colored with black ink. Nobunaga had him strip from the waist up and made him scrub his skin.[22] These events are recorded in a 1581 letter of the Jesuit Luís Fróis to Lourenço Mexia, and in the 1582 Annual Report of the Jesuit Mission in Japan, also by Fróis. These were published in Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (1598), normally known simply as Cartas.[23][24] When Nobunaga realized that the African's skin was indeed black, he took an interest in him.” You both seem in agreement actually.
  - simonh 4y ago
    Oh sure, it was incredibly unusual but once everyone got used to him being around after a few years, or a generation if he had kids, the novelty would wear off. I just don’t think it matters.