From: "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Isn't this exactly what the right-wing wants? A return to the 1950s?
>
1300's.
-----
Don't malign the 1300s that way. The High Middle Ages, while it had many
other faults, was far less racist than the Age of Exploration. Their
official stance on the subject was the Catholic Church's "We are all
children of God and therefore all brothers," (though - considering their
class system - some were surely older brothers and some younger) - and their
role model was the Roman Empire. Mallory's Knights of the Round Table (quite
a bit later, but still...) included a couple of dark-skinned Saracens. Now,
by Shakespeare's time, color had become an issue. (Not to mention that
Othello was culturally North African, which explains a lot about his
willingness to believe the worst of Desdemona.)
It was meeting people from other cultures, most of whom were darker than the
explorers,that brough racism back into a world in which it had been minor or
nonexistent since the Roman Empire.
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