While reading The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages I couldn't figure out how exactly this discussion pertained to race. I am looking at race through the lens of color which has been the Americanized understanding of it. So, reading Heng version of what race was in the middle ages is brandishing a new thought process that I am unfamiliar with. At first, I couldn't figure out why such a great distance for the jews. the further I read I realized race was about the relationship between Christianity and everyone else. Even in the poem when Richard is battling the French they are referred to as Saracens not because of the color of their skin but because their belief system is deemed wrong. Heng's definition of race rely on the standards the Europeans have set through religion. I wish that we were still having class in person because there is so much to unpack. I would really want to get a better understanding of the ritual murder and the blood libels with were quite strange to me.
This is a really good point. I didn't put together how much Heng's definition relied on European religious standards. And I miss in-person class too!
The Heng is such a critical text for the class and I HATE that we don't get to discuss it in person. Like Isabella, I'm really glad you've raised the point about religion and that you've attended to the fact that this is a very unfamiliar definition of race to us. I think there are some real strengths and a few limitations to Heng's definition. So, Heng essentially defines race not by skin color (to use her language, not by phenotype), but instead she broadens it as a category. She offers a definition of race where race is: a constructed system by which groups mark each other as essentially (as in fundamentally) different from each other, and this marking of difference is done to maintain and create hierarchies of power. What this broad definition allows is for Heng to actually talk about race in the middle ages (something that rarely happens), and it allows her to focus on the relationship between power and race. One of the consequences that I think your post does an excellent job of pointing out is that in the Middle Ages, with her definition, race is often primarily constructed along religious lines. I think that can be helpful. For example, it allows us as readers of the past to look at things like the blood libel and identify it as racist, but I can also see where we might want to push back on it too.
If you're interested, in the blood libels there's a great introductory write up on them: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/blood-libel
This sort of anti-jewish sentiment was hugely prevalent in the medieval europe, and I think there's a case to be made for it "setting the tone" for the concepts of race that come after it.
If you're interested, in the blood libels there's a great introductory write up on them: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/blood-libel
This sort of anti-jewish sentiment was hugely prevalent in the medieval europe, and I think there's a case to be made for it "setting the tone" for the concepts of race that come after it.