Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes in Western Europe, circa 1100–1300

Abstract

The central Middle Ages witnessed a remarkable upsurge in sources containing ethnic stereotypes. Should we interpret the increase in ethnic images as evidence that people identified more strongly with ethnic or national groups from the 12th century onwards? And to which extent was ethnic identity informed by cultural, religious, and medical discourses, as well as forged by political elites as part of a state-formation process? Addressing these questions from a broad range of perspectives and incorporating a wide body of research, this article offers a review of the scholarship on ethnic identity formation and the relevance of ethnic stereotyping in religious-eschatological thought, medical science, and political rhetoric from the 12th century. It challenges the notion that ethnic stereotyping reflected random expressions of hatred, or, conversely, expressions of nationalist patriotism in the later Middle Ages.Who or what crafted ethnic groups and nations, when, why, and how, is one of the most hotly debated topics in political, sociological, and anthropological studies. To date, there have been relatively few attempts to integrate research on ethnic identity in the Middle Ages with theoretical discussions on nationhood.1 Until recently, the predominant approach was to apply the modernist, post-Second World War instrumentalist view -that political elites craft nationsto premodernity. Mediaeval scholars have thus tracked the construction of the nation to, for example, 12th-century state-formation processes and the territorialisation of power. However, fresh research in the field of medical history has recently revealed how Hippocratic medical theory helped establish new beliefs about the nature of ethnic groups from the end of the 11th century. Furthermore, from circa 1000, lists of ethnic characteristics were appearing in monastic circles within a religious-eschatological context. It is therefore necessary to examine utterances about the nature of and identification with ethnic groups from a cultural, religious, social, and political perspective. Research should take a multi-facetted and longue-durée approach, in which political processes and structures are viewed as both forming and feeding off pre-existing cultural, religious -and from the 12th century also medical -customs, beliefs, and knowledge, in a social environment shaped by linguistic and legal distinctions. First, then, I will briefly discuss the role of politics and ideology in ethnic discourse; afterwards, I will turn to mediaeval beliefs about the make-up of ethnic groups, the influence of medical theory in ethnic stereotyping, and ideas about religion and ethnicity. Finally, I will present some ideas about possible new fields of research. Political Structures and Ethnic Group FormationScholars of the mediaeval era have often looked towards the growing bureaucracies and tightening judicial apparatus to partly explain the formation of nations from the 12th century onwards.2 For example, Adrian Hastings stated that ethnic groups, as oral commu...

Les répertoires parallèles de l’Opéra et de la Comédie-Française à la fin de l’Ancien Régime

“…, comme en témoigne la conception médiévale des nations. À travers cette terminologie, les groupes des différentes régions étaient identifiés par les termes latins populus, gens ou natio, qui faisaient référence à des identités existant depuis longtemps dans les villes ou les aires culturelles, en rivalité les unes avec les autres, mais n'agissant aucunement comme agents de l'État34 . Ce concept ancien de nation sous-tend la rivalité entre les opéras français et italiens au XVIII e siècle.…”

The Diffusion of Exclusion: Medieval Expulsions of Jews

“…Ancestry has long been connected to understandings of peoplehood in Europe. In medieval Europe, Jewish blood made someone Jewish(Nirenberg 2009), though stereotypical(Weeda 2014) cultural and linguistic behaviors were the evidence of innate Jewishness(Bartlett 2001;Stow 2001). For a masterful study of racialization in medieval Europe, consultHeng (2018).…”