Marvin Murray
HST 498, Essay #1
Images of Black Africans, 1400 – 1600
This essay will describe how the image of Africans changed from c. 1400 to c. 1600 in western Europe. C. 1400, both Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe shared an image of Africans as black-skinned, culturally primitive and pagan. During the next two hundred years, this image changed as Africans assimilated into western European societies. By the end of the sixteenth century, Atlantic and Mediterranean Europe shared a basically similar image of assimilated Africans as Christianized peoples well integrated into the fabric of European social and economic life; this image did not see Africans exclusively as agricultural slaves, but rather saw them in a variety of social and economic roles.
C. 1400, the European image of Africans consisted primarily of negative evaluations of African culture, lifestyle and religion; some accounts also contained fantastic descriptions of non-human or quasi-human Africans. At this time, the European image of Africans living in Africa came almost entirely from a relatively small collection of books that included some ancient authors and a few more contemporary, but no more accurate, accounts. These sources generally described black Africans as primitive savages. Descriptions of their mean housing and lack of clothing emphasized the poverty of their material culture. Authors made frequent reference to their lack of sophisticated political organization, which contrasted unfavorably with both ancient and medieval European and Near Eastern polities. Those descriptions authored by medieval Christian authors added to these criticisms the charge that black Africans were a pagan people without any knowledge of the Christian deity. Some books circulating in late medieval Europe also pictured some black Africans as being anatomically different from the familiar human beings of the Mediterranean world. In the era prior to the fifteenth century, when black Africans lived only in some parts of Europe in relatively small numbers and virtually no Europeans traveled to sub-Saharan Africa, few counter-examples were readily available to Europeans to disabuse them of the more ridiculous images of black Africans.
Although the above image appears frequently in written accounts dating from prior to the fifteenth century, some more accurate images of black Africans did exist c. 1400 in western Europe. As noted by Paul H. D. Kaplan, royal artists for the Hohenstaufen family depicted the Holy Roman Emperors attended by an elite honor guard of black African warriors.[1] During a recorded class lecture in 2011, Dr. Andrew E. Barnes noted that although these Africans were slaves, their imperial lords accorded them an honored status and relied upon their loyalty and martial skill. Nowhere in these pieces of art does one find the fantastic and/or denigrating image of black Africans discussed above.
Although the Hohenstaufen imperial imagery contrasts sharply with that of black Africans as described by many medieval and ancient sources, the Hohenstaufen art constitutes a rare instance of black Africans being depicted favorably and most likely did not obtain outside of high aristocratic circles in select regions of Europe. To be fair, the images of black Africans in the written sources probably did not enjoy wide circulation among ordinary western Europeans owing to a variety of factors, including the very low rate of literacy and high cost of books. However, medieval culture, as represented by Scholastic scholars, generally accorded ancient authors considerable weight, and western European medieval culture in general was conservative. The relative ubiquity of certain written accounts of black Africans in late medieval western Europe, as compared with the relative scarcity of surviving depictions of black Africans along the lines of those found in Hohenstaufen art, suggests that to the extent that ordinary Europeans had an image of black Africans at all, it was probably influenced by whatever notions of sub-Saharan Africa and its inhabitants that trickled down from more learned circles reading the above mentioned books, particularly the clergy.
By the close of the sixteenth century, the image of black Africans held by most western Europeans differed markedly from the image that prevailed c. 1400. By c. 1600, the image of black Africans held by many in western Europe was that of a black Christian who spoke the local language and participated in common life, including the economy, in a variety of roles. By far, the single greatest driver of this shift was the immigration of large numbers of black Africans into western Europe and their assimilation into European society. The western European of c. 1600 worked alongside black Africans, spoke a common language with them, worshipped according to the same religious tradition and even intermarried with them. Although a larger population of black Africans lived in Mediterranean Europe than in Atlantic Europe, both regions shared an essentially similar image of black Africans based primarily on the experience of living among assimilated Africans.
Although no sociological studies from the period exist, several contemporary sources indirectly suggest the character of African assimilation into western European society and the resulting change in how Europeans thought of black Africans. What records that do exist regarding slave holding indicate that many black Africans worked in domestic servitude, a broad category hat encompassed a variety of different jobs.[2] Such employment necessitated frequent contact and cooperation with white Europeans, from the kitchen to the marketplace. Furthermore, some black Africans worked in skilled trades or in port cities, further enlarging the circle of white Europeans who interacted with black Africans on a frequent basis.[3] These black Africans participated in the common economic, social and religious life of western Europe.
Thought it may seem counterintuitive, the relative absence of black Africans living in western Europe from contemporary paintings suggests the high degree of their assimilation; as Carmen Fracchia noted, black Africans seem to have become invisible.[4] We might say that they simply ceased to be of any special interest to a population of white Europeans who increasingly viewed them as servants, workers, neighbors and co-religionists.
Although some works of popular art, such as Elizabethan stage dramas, may be construed as indicating that black Africans occasioned anxiety and antipathy among white Europeans, such evidence falls short of making a compelling case, particularly in light of the above described assimilation and written accounts of English sailors’ dealings with black Africans in the New World. The Vaughans argue that stage dramas from the sixteenth century demonstrate the existence of a well-developed image of black Africans as an “other” and the object of popular disdain.[5] They also note the long association in Christian Europe between the color black and evil.[6] Bearing in mind that western Europeans probably did experience some ambivalent feelings about black-skinned foreign people integrating into their societies; the Vaughans give too little credit to the ability of early-modern Europeans to distinguish between symbol and reality. If black skin genuinely excited the hatred and mistrust of white Christians, then the assimilation of black Africans into European society would not have had the pragmatic character that it did.
The written accounts of English sailors and pirates operating the New World testify to the practical nature of relations between black Africans and white Europeans. Although these documents reflect the actions of a minority of Englishmen, the ordinary working English person probably had more in common with them than the elite circles that produced and sponsored theater troupes and playwrights. The rule of the day in these interactions was pragmatism. English seamen would not hesitate to trade in black Africans if they could profit by it, but they would also treat with black Africans as equals and allies if it suited them.[7] Although the English author Haklyut criticizes African culture on several counts in his books, he regards Christianized Africans as being suitable allies for the English against Spain the New World.[8] Nowhere in these works does one observe a conviction that black Africans are essentially different from white Europeans.
Thus, despite some minor regional variation, Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe shared a basically similar image of black Africans as savages c. 1400 and a basically similar image of black Africans as assimilated Christians c. 1600.
[1] Paul H. D. Kaplan, “Black Africans in Hohenstaufen Iconography,” Gesta; Vol. 26, No. 1 (1987): p29-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/767077.
[2] Walter Rodney, “Africa in Europe and the Americans” The Cambridge History of Africa Vol. 4 Cambridge Histories Online
[3] Ibid.
[4] Carmen Fracchia, “(Lack of) Visual Representation of Black Slaves in Spanish Golden Age Painting,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies Vol. 10, No. 1 (2004): 23-34.
[5] Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan, “Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan1997): p19-44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2953311
[6] Ibid.
[7] Michael Guasco, “’Free from the tyrannous Spanyard’? Englishmen and Africans in Spain’s Atlantic World,” Slavery and Abolition, Vol. 29, No. 1 (March 2008): 1-22
[8] Ibid.
