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It wasn't idyllic. The Holy Roman Empire suffered millions of civilian deaths during the 30 years war (on the order of a third of its population). It's just the

It wasn't idyllic. The Holy Roman Empire suffered millions of civilian deaths during the 30 years war (on the order of a third of its population). It's just the categories people used were things like region or (especially) religion. Race and racial ideology were developed in Europe, but it was in tandem with the modern era, not before it. Think 17th-19th centuries. It served a concrete purpose: to explain and justify how the leading European nations interacted with their colonial subjects. But there was no reason for race before colonialism, so it never developed because it would have served no purpose then.

Maursault 4y ago
This idea of racism being a modern invention is merely an academic theory. There is no doubt there were periodic exterminations of Jews in classical antiquity and atrocities perpetrated against Jews throughout the Middle Ages. Antisemitism is racism. Though the word "race" was probably coined in tandem with British Imperialism, Black slavery and the modern era, race, in fact, does not exist. Race is entirely a social construction, and regardless of the words used in antiquity, the same concepts were used to discriminate against, stereotype, repress and enslave peoples from the very dawn of civilization.