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

RaceB4Race Highlight

Defining race, periodizing race

In her 2019 RaceB4Race talk at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Geraldine Heng argues for thinking about race in transhistorical terms.

Geraldine Heng
Video

Premodern race as a critical canon

Heng offers insight on approaches to teaching the traditional, canonized literature of premodern Europe through the lens of premodern critical race studies.

Geraldine Heng
Reading list

Reading race in Shakespeare

Suggested readings from Ian Smith for an in-depth understanding of the "cliché of race."

Ian Smith

Selected annotated bibliography