Whitaker, Cord J. "Where were the Black people in the Middle Ages?" Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/black-people-in-the-middle-ages. [Date accessed].

Where were the Black people in the Middle Ages?

Cord J. Whitaker draws attention to a racially diverse and cosmopolitan medieval Europe.

Download the transcript
Cord J. Whitaker
Wellesley College

One of the barriers to teaching race in the European Middle Ages is the predominant cultural image of the period as racially, religiously, and ethnically homogenous. However, records and texts from the period offer insight into a rich and cosmopolitan period, where there were not only Black people in Europe, but they held positions of power and prestige. Cord J. Whitaker explains the vibrant landscape of the European Middle Ages. 

Further learning

Video

Blackness as metaphor

The history of racial construction is long and non-linear. Unpacking Blackness within medieval epics, and examining how Black characters are treated in these stories allow us to see how medieval Europe used Blackness as a rhetorical tool.

Cord J. Whitaker

Recommended

Video

The cliché of race

Probing the cliché of race is a necessary moral objective and pedagogic requirement that begins by making race visible in Shakespeare’s texts to disrupt the prevalence of a destructive, convenient untruth.

Ian Smith
Video

Early modern Orientalism

Dadabhoy's course asks students to read  premodern texts to deconstruct enduring fictions about Islam and Muslims across time and place.

Ambereen Dadabhoy
RaceB4Race Highlight

What is premodern critical race studies?

Margo Hendricks offers her insights into what exactly premodern critical race studies is (especially in comparison to premodern race studies), and what it means to be a practitioner within this field.

Margo Hendricks