american-holocaust

SEX, RACE AND HOLY WAR 181of its 100,000 people were slaves, mostly Africans, Moors who had beencaptured in wars and raids, and a somewhat smaller percentage of Turks. 105Indeed, writes John Boswell, "actual slavery (as opposed to feudal servitudeor indenturing) became more common in the later Middle Ages thanit had been at any time after the fall of Rome." 106"The Mediterranean, central to the development of human civilizationand lovingly celebrated in Euro-American historiography," observes OrlandoPatterson, "from the viewpoint of human oppression has been averitable vortex of horror for all mankind, especially for the Slavic andAfrican peoples." During the fifteenth century its waters were filled withsailing ships carrying legal and illegal loads of slaves from foreign lands,sometimes a few dozen in a single shipment, sometimes four hundred andmore. "Cargoes of two hundred slaves at a time were not exceptional,"Charles Verlinden once noted, adding elsewhere that many of these shipswere "floating tombs . . .. [where] available space was quite restrictedand epidemics rampant," and where death rates of 30 percent and morewere not uncommon. But even for those foreign captives who survived theseaborne ordeal, there was little that could be looked forward to withoptimism, for "in medieval Italy," writes Davis, "slaves were tortured bymagistrates and whipped without restraint by masters; in Siena a man whodamaged another's slave paid the same fine as if he had damaged a cow." 107Throughout the Middle Ages, then, war against the infidel in the holyland was a virtually perpetual Christian endeavor, while within Europetens of thousands of captured Muslim men, women, and children wereheld as chattel-and Jews lived in a near-permanent state of crisis. Evenotherwise innocuous Catholic theatrical productions in Europe's city streetscommonly portrayed Jews as demons assisting Antichrist in his attempteddestruction of Christianity. During and immediately after such performancesthe life of any Jew not safely under lock and key was in seriousjeopardy. For the same reason, the slightest changes in fortune for theChristian community could result in violent assault on Jewish scapegoats,while major changes in fortune might lead the entire local Jewish populationto the brink of extermination by simultaneously enraged and terrifiedself-styled Christian Soldiers-as indeed happened in the wake of the colossalBlack Death epidemic of the mid-fourteenth century.As early as 1215, in fact-more than a century before the Black Deathburst upon the Continent-a papal directive was issued requiring bothMuslims and Jews to wear distinctive attire. This was done in large measureto inhibit potential sexual liaisons between them and Christians. Punishmentfor such affairs ranged from public whipping while naked to burningat the stake. Buffeted about and expelled from various Europeancountries, including England and France, throughout the Middle Ages, Jewsliving in Spain were tolerated-if barely-even in the years immediatelyfollowing the Black Death, primarily because of their contributions to the