Racism - A Short History - George M Fredrickson.pdf - WNLibrary

durability that prejudice against the peripheral Europeans
would never quite attain. Suspicions that recent Slavic or
Scandinavian converts had not fully internalized the true
faith, and might even remain secret pagans, may well have
been justified in some cases. But unless—or until—it was
presumed that such infidelity was organic and carried in
the blood, it would not be proper to describe such an attitude
as racist.
It remains true, however, that medieval Europe was a
“persecuting society,” increasingly intolerant, not only of
Jews, but also of lepers and anyone whose beliefs or behavior
smacked of heresy or deviance at a time when religious
and moral conformity were being demanded more insistently
than ever before. 17 It stands to reason that such a
drive for uniformity and homogeneity would engender resistance
to cultural pluralism and provide fertile soil for
ethnic intolerance. Encouraging and exacerbating this heterophobia
were the tensions and anxieties resulting from
momentous social, economic, and political changes. The
gradual consolidation of countries such as England, France,
and Spain into relatively large dynastic states with definite
borders and a single predominant language was beginning
to threaten local autonomy, and an acceleration of urbanization
and commercialization were bringing people of diverse
culture and appearance into fractious contact and creating
conflicts between feudal lords and an emerging
bourgeoisie. But in the fourteenth century the incredible
catastrophe of the Black Death inspired an especially urgent
hunt for scapegoats. As we have seen, the demonization of
the Jews in the popular Christian mind was brought to fru-
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