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.
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
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Language, race, and Chaucer adaptations
A reading list for teaching Chaucer through modern adaptations. This list focuses on scholarship for reading and understanding Chaucer from a premodern critical race studies lens, including global Chaucer adaptations to help students explore how medieval texts continue to inform questions of identity, power, and belonging.
