As a historian, a phenomenon that has always fascinated me is contact and dissemination of ideas between cultures.

There are tantalizing bits of evidence occasionaly refered to in other works, or things you come across while researching, or things that get quoted by people (unfortunately without any accompanying documentation) pointing to this phenomenon. I would like to put this topic up to share what information we can regarding this phenomenon. Please note I am not trolling for documentation to allow bizzare and unusual equipment in any portrayals. I am firmly of the opinion that people from differing cultures staying for any length of time in an area radically different from their home did theior best to fit in, or would suffer appaling consequences - especialy in the High and Late Middle Ages.

Here are a couple of examples from the 15th c. that particularly pique my interest. If anyone has any information on them I would appreciate your sharing them with us.

A copy of Talhoffer in the Royal Armouries shows one of the people engaged in a sequence who is black.

I have never seen a good colour picture of the Ceasar tapestries made for Charles the Bold (in is in Bern now), but a close up black and white seems to indicate one of the men at arms depicted may be black.

There are several Italian paintings I am aware of that show Africans, but they are inevitably showing people who are servants, and at this period of history in this region one cane readily draw the conclusion they are probably slaves. The two above examples from the occupations engaged in would indicate they were not.

I am aware of Portugese contact with Africa and Venitian and other Italian States trading in North Africa and the Middle East.

A persistant rumour I hear occasionaly is that the Burgundian Army had Oriental women amongst it's camp followers. I have always dismissed this out of hand as a fanciful tale. Recently while reading Peter Spuffords "Money and its use in the Middle Ages" (a tough read, but chock full of useful information on the subject) I came across a reference to the Slave trade along the Silk Road, and the phenomenon of Caucasian slaves being traded to the Far East (mostly Georgian), and Oriental slaves being traded in the Mid East and to Western Merchants. If this provides documentation for slaves of Oriental origin in Italy, then one could account for the phenomenon of the Oriental campfollowers in the Burgundian camp at Grandson - allowing for the increasing Italian influence in the Burgundian court from 1471. I would like to see documentation on this though.

I have seen documentation for a Chinese ambassador to France c. 1450. He stayed several months in Paris, which he refered to in an apparently extant letter as a "Filthy little provincial town".

Then you have the documentation (slightly off topic) for the Chinese naval exploratory expedition that managed to reach the West coast of the US and Mexico. Untill recently usually dismissed out of hand - until the discover of Chinese anchors on the West coast and Potsherds in Mayan sites.

I look forward to seeing what people can offer on the subject.

I have never seen a good colour picture of the Ceasar tapestries made for Charles the Bold (in is in Bern now), but a close up black and white seems to indicate one of the men at arms depicted may be black.

I told Robert de Tyre some time ago that he could participate with the Red Company if he had the appropriate kit- but I don't think he believed me....maybe he will now...

There are several Italian paintings I am aware of that show Africans, but they are inevitably showing people who are servants, and at this period of history in this region one can readily draw the conclusion they are probably slaves.

Paintings by Carpaccio and Titian frequently show black servants who are often attired in fantastic costumes which included turbans and long, brilliantly colored and decorated coats. Apparently, these "exotic" servants were quite a status symbol and so feature prominently in portraiture of the late 15th- early 16th. I can post a couple if we have any doubters.

There is a very famous portrait by Raphael (early 16th C.) of a gorgeously attired man who is clearly black and who is clearly not a servant.

I'm going to support your contention that these non-Europeans would have assimilated to European styles. I believe quite positively that representatives of non-European cultures visited or resided in Europe in the 15th and 16th C., but I DO NOT believe they wore native or folk attire. There may have been traders or merchants from the Levant in Venice, but they would have been wearing European clothing, not native attire.

A famous example of this (albeit a bit later) would have been Pocahontas- while Victorians portrayed her at Court in "native" attire, the written record shows she was presented in current European fashion.

......and we all know how the Victorians screwed around with history.....

As a Victorian re-enactor too I have to shout UNFAIR.

There litrature in the right areas was accurate & well written given the bases they were writing from, we stand on their shoulders remember.

I do not now where this was seen, but I'd guess Punch or similar, which is not nor was every presented as anything except satarical litrature !

Equally they viewed history from their stand point ie an imperialistic one, we view it from ours which will probably look equally flawed in 100 years.

OK rage over, you hit a nerve !

As a passionate Victorian-o-phile (is that even a *word*???) I love Victorian stuff of all shapes and sizes, and I completely agree that most Victorian literature is accurate based on the available information. However, you must admit that available information was different then than now and that in general, Victorians had a tendancy to overy romanticize everything -including history- and mould it to current fashion.

A case in point would be the famous Victorian costume book by Braun & Schneider. While fabulous as *costumes*, they fairly reek of Victorian shapes and style. The same can be said of Norris, whose shapes are all 40's, and Turner-Wilcox, whose shapes are all 50's. I own all of the books and use them for costume research. I just know their limitations, and when I want historical facts, not interpretations, I go to the actual clothes 'a la Janet Arnold, or period illos 'a la Davenport.

Every society in every culture and time period is guilty of "revisionist history", no matter how well-intentioned. My comments were not meant to unneccessarily impugn Victorian scholarship.

To bring it round to the topic of Pocohantas, I may have misspoken- the engravings I'm thinking of may have been far earlier than Victorian, possibly 17th C.

Sorry for the tangent. I don't want to derail this thread, as I think it's very interesting!

One thing that has always piqued this interest of mine is a local artifact. I happen to have lived most of my life in a town in Massachussets that has a very solid (but little known) piece of evidence for pre-columbian European contact in the late 14th c. That has been documented by credible sources.

This artifact (it is an enourmous boulder in the ground) had always been considered to be of Native American origin since it was 'discovered' by the first European settlers in the region. The carving on it was always considered to be from a local Indian tribe (it is mentioned as such in local histories from the 18th c. onward), and was being examined as such by a team of archaeologists from Harvard - then they ascertained that the exposed carving was only a very small percentage of a larger picture. Don't get excited - this is not a recent development, it occured in the late 60's I believe.

Current political thought keeps the whole story from being more than a local one, and as someone who has enough courses in Pre - Columbian history to be one class shy of a minor in it (I have completed every class the University offers in it), it is no big news. The likely date of "First Contact" keeps on being edged back every decade or so. More importantly, just like visitors from other cultures to Europe in the 15th c., these Europeans were a small pebble tossed into a pond for a moment - they made scarcely a ripple and departed. What makes Columbus so important is that he brought people who stayed.

The Merrimack valley happens to have a large ammount of intriguing rock carvings (including an accurate map of the whole valley in Chelmsford Mass) of Native American origin, so it was quite natural for the one in Westford to be taken as more of the same from time immemorial.

I must cook dinner, but afterward I will post the relevant details after looking up the facts of the case. The next time someone is in these parts and interested in seeing the site, just let me know and you shall be taken to it.

Well, I made a few small mistakes in my message above. I have an article on the subject in front of me - originaly printed in "Yankee Magazine" about three decades ago. The artifact was discovered for what it is by an amateur archaeologist - Frank Glynn in 1954, following the advice given him by Prof. T. C. Lethbridge of the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, England.

An earlier amateur Archaeologist W.G. Goodman in his book "Greater Ireland in America" had interpreted a drawing of an image on 'a rock in Massachussets ' as representing an 11th c. Norse "broken sword".

On seeing the image in the book, Dr. Lethbridge who had a lively pen friendship going on with Glynn, recognised the image as probably being the pommel of a bastard sword. He wrote Glynn urging him to find the specific ledge and told him to "Strip back the dirt and see if you don't find something like this". He enclosed a sketch of a 14th c. knight. It took Glynn two years of searching to find the particular rock & image.

What Glynn found has been identified as a military effigy. It is an image of a 14th c. knight - complete with visored bascinet, heater shield, and bastard sword. The image was made by a metal punch repeatedly hammered into the rock. With the aid of the Lion King of Arms, the heraldry has been identified as belonging to a branch of the Sinclair family.

This article was written prior to the completion of a professional examination by the team from Harvard I had mentioned. I have seen a write up on it in an Archaeology magazine in the U. Lowell library some years ago, but I didn't have the presence of mind to photocopy it. Perhaps Peder could do some digging for the article.

Interestingly enough, in 1873 an English translation was made of a document known as the "Zeno Narrative", which had been dismissed as a forgery for many years. The narrative describes an expedition by Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney that went into the Western Atlantic. Unfortunately the original document was destroyed in an air raid in the Second World War, more than a dozen years before Glynn's discovery of what the image for what it is.

The long and the short of the Harvard examination of the rock is that they believed it was probably genuine. There is a granite post in front of the ledge with the Sinclair arms on it commemorating the visit (and probable demise of a family member).

The image usually has the protective layer of dirt put back over most of the image as it was found, although it is ocassionaly uncovered for examination, with the puch marks chalked out exposing the image to casual observation. There is a granite post and chain fence put round it to discourage vandals. I'll try to scan the image and post it later.

Heaven forfend we fall into the trap of revisionist history! The point of the post is to examine briefly the unusual occurance of people from radicaly different culture crossing into Europe and visa-versa. To stay alive in Europe, one adapted (or one died).

I would note that the most common occurance for a prolonged stay in Europe for a non-European was indeed as a slave. The same could be said for a European staying in the Middle East by the Late Middle ages. Slavery itself was not wide spead in Northern Europe, but was common amongst the well to do and Aristocracy in Southern France and Italy. Of course the standard reaction to something/someone radically different than onself in the era we are discussing was fear/revulsion/hostility.

It is the events like the aquisition of the Canary Islands, Portugal's conquest of Tangiers, Portugese exploration of the coast of Africa that we are most familiar with this collision of culture. The Turkish conquest of Byzantium and the Balkans springs to mind as well !

I am fishing for solid evidence of the non-Europeans visit to Europe. Mostly, I am trying to see if anybody can come up with any substantial evidence for the occasionaly bandied about theory of Oriental campfollowers amongst the Burgundian army. Somebody at least tell me the origin of the fairy tale if it is one. I am by no means suggesting we aquire some campfollowers for a portrayal.

Then there is that fellow of African origin in the Talhoffer plate, and the possible Man at arms of similar origin in the Ceasar Tapestries....

Regardless, it was not a warm, fuzzy. PC world. This is the last place you will find people suggesting it was.

I'm with Bob on this, noone here is trying to revise history to reflect current politically correct / everybody feel good attitudes. Noone here is advocating allowing belly dancers into the camp train, Mongols as scouts or Samurais as the Guard of Honor.

What we're trying to do (at least as far as I can tell) is examine what really MIGHT have been the facts as far as cross cultural contact in Europe went.

I wholeheartedly agree with you and Bob as far as cultural/racial bias in period is concerned- from my reading, one became one of the herd of mainstream Europeans (in our case, Burgundians) or you were ostracized or dead. This is part of the thinking that makes me stick by my unpopular opinion that 15th girls need to wear girl clothes and act like girls, not boys. But that's another thread.

Anyway, the point is, if a black man wanted to join the RedCo., I still say OK. the proviso is that he must wear RedCo. approved clothes like everybody else. I still don't think doing so is being PC or revisionist.

I do beg to differ with you on one point though- you say "Europe is not the center of the universe!". In the Big Picture™ that my be so, but in this conversation, Europe, specifically Burgundy *is* the center of the universe.

I for one would be very hesitant (although intrigued!!) to throw away all my history books about when Europeans came to this continent.

Without accurate dating, etc, there's nothing to show that the carving was actually DONE in the 14th century. I'm not saying it wasnt, but I'm a known skeptic .

The Billy and Charlie fakes come to mind...a bunch of folks thought medieval junk was cool and so a burgening trade of knockoffs started up. Much of the Cluny's collection in Paris started out with some real stuff and some of these fakes. (Of course, the fakes are now worth more than some of the real stuff, go figure! ).

I guess my take home message is that before I go and automatically ascribe a carving in a rock to a certain period, I need a bit more scientific data than "it looks like a 14th century knight".

Bob, did the article discuss carbon dating, or metallurgy from the metal fragments left in the channels?

Being a musician, I tend to notice pictures of other musicians more often than I do others, and I can think of at least two or three late fifteenth/early sixteenth century paintings and illustrations that show black musicians in clearly European surroundings.

One of the more convincing bits of evidence for that carving being authentic is that it is mentioned in early local histories dating to the Eighteenth Century (the town was settled in the 1720's) as - A. being a carving of an indian chief (only the grip of the sword and the prow of the ship in the COA was visible before the ledge was dug out in 1954 - 90% of the image was never seen until that point) and - B. Being there prior to European settlement.

The examination by professional archaeologists included carbon dating and close examination of the tool marks. They concluded, as I recollect, that the punchmarks were made with an iron tool, that they were pre-columbian, and that they were in no way consistant with other local native carvings, of which there are a few dozen pre-columbian native american rock carvings in the region. There are also local (Mass & R.I.) English colonial carvings, done by bored locals for amusement or as a con to gull the credulous into parting with money. The image is not like these either - it is unlike any of these in style of execution (most consist of words or made up alphabets boldly carved into the rock).

I am one of the last guys to put my faith into crackpot theories about Martians, Atlantis, The Bermuda triangle - you name it. I was extremely gratified to see the old mill in Newport RI that has been atributed to be "Viking" in origin (even though it appears as a mill in the oldest colonial documents) because of a superficial structural resemblence to a type of church found in Scandanavia. When they did archaeological examination of the place, they found a 17th c. shoe heel and buttons and clay pipes under some of the the foundation stones of the building.

Not to be argumentative, but my first time through school was with a major in archeology, and in the case you site, the only thing that a carbon14 date would tell you is how old the rock is that the carving is on. It is impossible to date the carving.

Carbon dating can be used to date stone items by dating arganinc compounds in the surrounding soils ( wood material, ash, and even bone) but only in cases where the material surrounding the item has remained undisturbed since the deposition of the item.

The way you describe the item, as being partial exposed, makes it impossible to date the soils around it,as they would be thoroughly contaminated by more modern infiltrates

Robert Coleman, Jr.
The Noble Companie and Order of St. Maurice
Those who beat their swords into plowshares end up plowing for those who don't.

After going for a cup of coffee, a despairing Templar Bob finds himself in something of a dilemma again. Finding the level of authenticity lacking to my satisfaction in the SCA, I've found myself wanting to look elsewhere.

I posted some months ago about altering my Templar persona to more accurately reflect what my status (as a person of African extraction) probably would be. While I can document the use of sub-Saharan Africans in the armies of the Fatimid Caliphate, I also know that they fled due to a revolt against the Sunnite Sultan, Salah-ed-Din.

It seems within the realm of possiblility that some of these refugees would have found their way to the Crusader States. It is even plausable that some may have converted to Christianity due to their experiences with Orthodox Sunni Islam. However, there is only one group (to my certain knowledge) currently studying this era.

I agree with Pieter that most cross-cultural people would do their best (within reason) to adapt. However, can I (or an audience) suspend disbelief? While I'd love to be involved with such a group as Novae Militiae, it looks like I'm gonna be stuck wearing Union Army Blue again...

My comments were specifically in reference to musicians and (in the one example a herald)......
Although musicians were regarded as retainers, there was a great deal of competition for positions, especially with 'great households' there was a fairly established structure for getting these positons and that usually involved a guild membership or its equivilent; and this also included a certain degree of education ( the ability to read, and to read musical notation, and to sing in vernacular and latin).... to my knowledge only free-men could participate.

As far as the herald goes, there was definitly some social rank attached to such positions, just look at the the book of Edward IV's household to see the rank attached to seemingly insignificant duties.

These positions may have bee filled because of the uniqueness of the Africans in question, but I strongly doubt that they were simple bondsmen.
This does not mean that the average 'man on the street' would have had routine contact with such people, but does support their being more than slaves or servants.

In fact since warfare was largely the purvue of the upper classes, I think it highly likely that such 'exotic' household members would have been brought on campaign with their lord. In this light, it makes it slightly more likely that they would have been seen in military camps than elsewhere.

Don't go getting all discouraged about going Templar! This was discussed at length months ago & several options were pointed out then to explain your background.

If you really can't justify the issue to yourself, why not go Native? The Templar's must have had quite a few native converts and local employees. You could adopt their gear, or use the local equipment. Besides, the Saracens had some sweet-looking armor of thir own, not to mention the razor sharp swords.

I've always thought there was too much of a European bent at reenactments. It'd be great to see a well-done Middle Eastern, Asian, or African camp. To the best of my (spotty) recollection, there have only been 3 non-euro camps at J-town in the past 10 years: A native American camp (white guys), a WWII Japanese camp (all white, including a including a 6-2, 275#er), and a Viet-Cong camp (with a single Asian teen-age girl amongst the whites).

They didn't sweat it, why should you? Besides, the Union has a boatload of reenactors. Medieval needs all the able bodies we can get!

What seperates playtime with a Medieval theme from living history is not having to suspend ones disbelief to a great degree, either for the audience or the participants. Any re-enactor can tell you how they can get swept up in a large scale, well done event - precisely because of the lack of obvious jarring visuals as well as the action or setting. Templar Bob has gone to great pains to come up with a believable and accurate portrayal, and I think it is almost insulting (although unintentionaly on your part) to his efforts to just say "the heck with it" and suggest he portray a persona he is most obviously not. Why not just suggest he play a female leprechaun in a pink tutu and tell everyone he is really 1' tall?

It is very believable to see TB as a seargent of the Order or a Turcopole of same ( a rather forbidding looking one I might add ). It is plain silly to have him say he is a Frenchman or a Wallachian, just as silly as it would be for you to dress up in African ritual tribal gear and call yourself a Bantu tribesman.

Templar Bob would equally make an excellent Sudanese Mercenary in Pre-successful Reconquista Granada, or a conversio of similar origin - even in full Milanese on horseback in an ordinance company (note the tapestry quoted above). This thread points to the evidence that other cultures had contact with late Medieval Europe, although it was not common, it did happen. You may not be Norwegian, but you are a Northern European, and you are not a bald faced visual lie in a Viking shield wall. It would be a lie to all concerned to say TB was the Duke of Bar - you can't call it living history anyhow,

I think Templar Bob's efforts at a believable potrayal are to be applauded, not made sport of.

We established that black men show up in the role of servants. I can see that Robert wouldn't want to be a servant. But we've also established that black men show up as heralds (as Crispin points out, a position of respect and importance), musicians (educated and socially adept), sparring partners (Talhoeffer) and soldiers (accompanying saints).

I say that this factual evidence supports the historical possibility of a few black men in 15th. C Europe, how ever they got there. One black soldier in a company sounds just about as good odds as Bob R.'s one disguised woman in the same company.

Although I disagree with Geoffrey's premise that it doesn't matter what color or sex you are, but I believe he has the right of it when he says

People are going to believe you because of the credibility you establish with the details and authenticity of your portrayal, as well as the knowledge you show in the discussion of your persona.

If Robert were to appear at a 15th C. as a soldier just like everyone else, and had a plausible explaination for how he got there, I think he'd be just as realistic as any of the rest of us. Maybe he started out as a servant or musician but his lord was killed and he had to earn his living another way. Maybe he was a Spanish (Moorish) physician on his way somewhere and got conscripted to help with the army? Maybe he was a Moorish sword master who was hired by the Duke to train his captains.

I'm firmly against fantastic and ridiculously implausible portrayal stories, but I wouldn't have to do any squinting to believe Robert as a European soldier. Maybe because I look at so many paintings and see a fair number of black faces looking out of those paintings, I just don't think it would be that impossible.

On the other hand, it would be different if we were discussing a black woman, as I don't recall seeing a single black woman anywhere.

But that's OK! If you guys don't think it's OK for Robert to play with you, I'm sure you won't mind then if we grab him...wanna be a soldier with us Robert??? Huh, Huh?? We gotta nice spot for you in the pike square with the other guys...you on one corner and Hugo on the other and we're unbeatable

Gwen

Read the whole message. I said I could see him in an ordinance company. He just would have to have a believable origin, not say he was Guillaume Chanticlere and a full blooded Picard !