Book chapter
Ethnicity
A New Companion to Chaucer, pp.137-150
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
04/10/2019
DOI: 10.1002/9781118902226.ch9
Abstract
Medieval culture and science point to emergent political fantasies about racial differences between groups of people, and an awareness of the construction of group identities through ethnicity. Bartholomew the Englishman's encyclopedia includes humour‐based theories about the effect of climate in different geographic locations, which were pivotal in promoting a white‐black colour line. Christianity also promoted racial fantasies, particularly regarding images of Jews and Saracens (Muslims), as crucifixion renderings, boy martyr myths and Middle English romances attest. Several of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales explicitly support racial thinking through their denigration of blackness, their elevation of whiteness and their construction of Jews as enemies of Christendom; but the same those texts also contain other elements that hint at an understanding of identity as constructed along ethnic rather than racial lines.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Ethnicity
- Creators
- Kathy Lavezzo
- Contributors
- Peter Brown (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- A New Companion to Chaucer, pp.137-150
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; Chichester, UK
- DOI
- 10.1002/9781118902226.ch9
- Number of pages
- 14
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/10/2019
- Academic Unit
- English
- Record Identifier
- 9984418978502771
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