(One in a series of posts on George Fredrickson’s 2002 book, Racism: A Short History.)
Ancient Greeks “distinguished between the civilized and the barbarous“; Romans between slaves and citizens; Christians and Jews between believers and unbelievers, but racism as we understand it today did not exist in the ancient Mediterranean world. (p. 17)
Turning to the medieval era, Fredrickson distinguishes among anti-Judaism and antisemitism: “Anti-Judaism became antisemitism whenever it turned into a consuming hatred that made getting rid of Jews seem preferable to trying to convert them, and antisemitism became racism when the belief took hold that Jews were intrinsically and organically evil rather than merely having false beliefs and wrong dispositions.” (p. 19)
It was in the 12th and 13th centuries—in the wake of the First Crusade (1096)—that massacres of Jews became more common across Europe. Even then, Fredrickson observes, baptism was typically an alternative to death. “That so many Jews chose to die was a testament to the strength of their faith and that of their executioners rather than a prelude to the Holocaust.” (p. 20)
The emerging racism of late medieval Europe wasn’t aimed solely at Jews and Muslims. Fredrickson cites historian Robert Bartlett’s argument that as Catholic European powers expanded, “the prejudice and discrimination directed at the Irish on one side of Europe and certain Slavic peoples on the other foreshadowed the dichotomy between civilization and savagery that would characterize imperial expansion beyond the European continent“. Some German laws banned intermarriage with Slavs and Anglo-Irish cities barred membership in guilds to those of “Irish blood or birth“. (p. 23)
Despite that, Fredrickson resists calling these behaviors racist: “What was missing—and why I think such ethnic discrimination should not be labeled racist—was an ideology or worldview that would persuasively justify such practices.” (p. 24) Even the increased demonization of Jews by Christians in the wake of the catastrophic Black Death epidemics of the 14th century does not rise, in Fredrickson’s view, to the level of racism.
Massacres of Jews? What commonality is Fredrickson trying to prove? The period of 500 until 1500 was one of To Conquer or Be Conquered. The Jewish people had no state but were spread along the periphery of commercial enterprise or labored in rural areas of Europe similar to their neighbours. Persecution based on religion became part of continental war when boundaries were more clearly drawn. Racism as we know it today had to be based on a theory of some idiot like Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan. Savagery and barbarism preceded the birth of Christ by eons. Read about the Vikings, Huns, Chinese/Mongol hordes and Alexander the Great. Don’t forget the exploits and savagery of the Muslim Conquests. What about the push of the Mongol Empire into Central Europe [1206-1368]?
History of Anglo-Saxon cooperation with Jews, persecution, murders and expulsion of 1290 until 1640. [Jewish Virtual Library]
Jews persecuted in Spain in the 15th century were welcomed by the Dutch Protestants in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Others ‘converted’ and chose to be part of the Portuguese colonization of South America (Brazil) before being ousted en returned to Europe or stayed in the Caribbean (slave trade) or settled in New Amsterdam (New York).
○ The Making of Europe – Introduction by Robert Bartlett
Thanks for your comment. This post is just the second in a (planned) series of posts on Fredrickson’s book. As the book goes along, he traces the development of racism as an ideology over several hundred years up to the dawn of the 21st century.
Yet his arguments also debatable …