Recommended listening: Easter Sunday Mass in Gregorian Chant - Monks of Notre Dame de Fontgombault
Story
"Se gewuna stent on Godes cyrcan, þurh lareowas geset, þæt gehwær on Godes gelaðunge se sacerd bletsian sceole palm-twigu on ðisum dæge, and hí swa gebletsode ðam folce dælan; and sceolon ða Godes þeowas singan ðone lofsang, þe þæt Iudeisce folc sang togeanes Criste, þaþa he genealæhte his ðrowunge. We geeuenlæcað þam geleaffullum of ðam folce mid þisre dæde, forðan ðe hi bæron palm-twigu mid lofsange togeanes þam Hælende.
The custom exists in God's church, by its doctors established, that everywhere in God's congregation the priest should bless palm-twigs on this day, and distribute them so blessed to the people; and God's servants should then sing the hymn which the Jewish people sang before Christ, when he was approaching to his passion. We imitate the faithful of that people with this deed, for they bare palm-twigs with hymn before Jesus."
The Benedictine abbot Ælfric of Eynsham wrote these words around the turn of the 11th century in a sermon to be delivered on Palm Sunday. After the long days of Lent, hope returned with this joyous celebration at the beginning of Holy Week. All around medieval England, the faithful would have heard sermons like Ælfric's in their mother tongue as they began the lead-up to Easter. As the world around them was reborn into spring, so too would they hope to be reborn in Christ when their time came.
One among these faithful is the woman featured here, a parishioner of North Elmham. North Elmham, from an Old English name meaning "village where elms grow", was the seat of the Bishop of Elmham in the year 1000. In those days, the cathedral was rather humble, an old timber church with only one wall of stone on its east end. Buried in the cathedral graveyard, however, are many parishioners from that time. Men and women, young and old, they were all interred by loved ones who hoped that one day they would be reunited in Heaven. Among them was a woman who in some ways was different from the others. Certain features of her skeleton suggested strongly that unlike the other people buried in North Elmham, she was Black.
Black people have been coming to Britain in small but steady numbers since at least the Roman era. In spite of this, white scholars have long struggled with how best to interpret archaeological evidence associated with these people. For example, the archaeologists who excavated North Elmham came up with lurid ideas of how this woman may have come to be here, couched in schockingly racist and objectifying terms like "dusky Venus", "little black pearl", and "a living Fabergé jewel". The authors of the archaeological report from 1980 explicitly other her, coming up with elaborately lewd slave narratives to justify the existence of "such an exotic person [...] in such a homespun community". No other woman buried in North Elmham suffered such sexualization at the hands of the people who disturbed her grave. The other, presumably white women were seen as the natural members of North Elmham's community while the sole Black woman was reduced to a sexually appealing foreign slave.
But the wealth of archaeological evidence of Black people and other Africans living in Britain across the medieval period tells a different story. While some may have arrived in Britain as slaves, others were members of the Roman army and their descendants. Some came as distinguished ecclesiastical guests, like Bishop Hadrian of Canterbury, or the people buried in Whithorn whose teeth prove they grew up drinking the water of the Nile. The Christian network across Europe, Africa, and West Asia was a vast one. That some people found their way from one corner of it to another should not come as a great surprise. London and York, two important trading ports, show evidence of Black and African merchants and other visitors who came on their own terms, not as slaves. While North Elmham is not as cosmopolitan, it was an episcopal see not far from London. In later medieval times, documented Black people find their way from London to more rural areas like Gloucestershire, so it's not hard to imagine that something similar would have happened in the days before the Norman Conquest too.
The North Elmham woman may well have been born there, but whether or not she was, her burial shows that she was just as much a member of this "homespun community" as anyone. There is nothing about her burial to distinguish her from the other faithful Christians laid to rest under the lofty elms of their home. She was a little shorter than the rest of them and had darker skin, but there's no evidence to suggest that this led to a significantly different treatment within the community. Living to an age between 35 and 45, she may well have married and had children before passing away. Her grave in the church where she worshiped every week would have been a comfort to those she left behind, a reminder that although they mourned her now, one day they would be together again in the glory of the Resurrection.
It is participating in a Christian ritual of hope and the anticipation of rebirth that we find her illustrated here. Like the other parishioners, she has received one of the blessed palm-twigu, or palm twigs, locally substituted with yew branches. Palm Sunday processions are first found in the liturgical books of Francia, Spain, Germany and England, meaning that she is participating in one of the earliest recorded expressions of this tradition. As the people carry the branches back to the church, they sing hymns and imagine themselves in the place of the faithful who accompanied Jesus on his humble donkey into Jerusalem. The children, perhaps including some of her own, have gone ahead and are already waiting in the church. When the adults reach the west door, the children will sing them the hymn Gloria, Laus et Honor, and they will repeat the words back to them:
Gloria, laus et honor
tibi sit, Rex Christe, Redemptor:
Cui puerile decus prompsit
Hosanna pium.
All glory, praise and honour
to Thee, Redeemer King:
to whom the lips of children
made sweet Hosannas ring.
These words echo forward through time, from their 9th century origins to the lips of the woman of North Elmham and her children, all the way to today when they are still sung on Palm Sunday. So too is our interpretation of the medieval English past rooted in the present. Too often, Black people are excluded from the narrative of early medieval England in spite of the ample archaeological evidence that this is their story, too. And even when they are included, it is too often in degrading and racist narratives that diminish them to exotic "others", or to the foreign-born property of the "real" English people. Today, I ask you to remember the woman of North Elmham not as the racist reconstructions of past archaeologists and present white nationalists would imagine her -- but instead, how she herself would have probably wanted to be remembered: A faithful member of the Christian community at North Elmham, looking forward to the day of her resurrection in Christ.
The custom exists in God's church, by its doctors established, that everywhere in God's congregation the priest should bless palm-twigs on this day, and distribute them so blessed to the people; and God's servants should then sing the hymn which the Jewish people sang before Christ, when he was approaching to his passion. We imitate the faithful of that people with this deed, for they bare palm-twigs with hymn before Jesus."
The Benedictine abbot Ælfric of Eynsham wrote these words around the turn of the 11th century in a sermon to be delivered on Palm Sunday. After the long days of Lent, hope returned with this joyous celebration at the beginning of Holy Week. All around medieval England, the faithful would have heard sermons like Ælfric's in their mother tongue as they began the lead-up to Easter. As the world around them was reborn into spring, so too would they hope to be reborn in Christ when their time came.
One among these faithful is the woman featured here, a parishioner of North Elmham. North Elmham, from an Old English name meaning "village where elms grow", was the seat of the Bishop of Elmham in the year 1000. In those days, the cathedral was rather humble, an old timber church with only one wall of stone on its east end. Buried in the cathedral graveyard, however, are many parishioners from that time. Men and women, young and old, they were all interred by loved ones who hoped that one day they would be reunited in Heaven. Among them was a woman who in some ways was different from the others. Certain features of her skeleton suggested strongly that unlike the other people buried in North Elmham, she was Black.
Black people have been coming to Britain in small but steady numbers since at least the Roman era. In spite of this, white scholars have long struggled with how best to interpret archaeological evidence associated with these people. For example, the archaeologists who excavated North Elmham came up with lurid ideas of how this woman may have come to be here, couched in schockingly racist and objectifying terms like "dusky Venus", "little black pearl", and "a living Fabergé jewel". The authors of the archaeological report from 1980 explicitly other her, coming up with elaborately lewd slave narratives to justify the existence of "such an exotic person [...] in such a homespun community". No other woman buried in North Elmham suffered such sexualization at the hands of the people who disturbed her grave. The other, presumably white women were seen as the natural members of North Elmham's community while the sole Black woman was reduced to a sexually appealing foreign slave.
But the wealth of archaeological evidence of Black people and other Africans living in Britain across the medieval period tells a different story. While some may have arrived in Britain as slaves, others were members of the Roman army and their descendants. Some came as distinguished ecclesiastical guests, like Bishop Hadrian of Canterbury, or the people buried in Whithorn whose teeth prove they grew up drinking the water of the Nile. The Christian network across Europe, Africa, and West Asia was a vast one. That some people found their way from one corner of it to another should not come as a great surprise. London and York, two important trading ports, show evidence of Black and African merchants and other visitors who came on their own terms, not as slaves. While North Elmham is not as cosmopolitan, it was an episcopal see not far from London. In later medieval times, documented Black people find their way from London to more rural areas like Gloucestershire, so it's not hard to imagine that something similar would have happened in the days before the Norman Conquest too.
The North Elmham woman may well have been born there, but whether or not she was, her burial shows that she was just as much a member of this "homespun community" as anyone. There is nothing about her burial to distinguish her from the other faithful Christians laid to rest under the lofty elms of their home. She was a little shorter than the rest of them and had darker skin, but there's no evidence to suggest that this led to a significantly different treatment within the community. Living to an age between 35 and 45, she may well have married and had children before passing away. Her grave in the church where she worshiped every week would have been a comfort to those she left behind, a reminder that although they mourned her now, one day they would be together again in the glory of the Resurrection.
It is participating in a Christian ritual of hope and the anticipation of rebirth that we find her illustrated here. Like the other parishioners, she has received one of the blessed palm-twigu, or palm twigs, locally substituted with yew branches. Palm Sunday processions are first found in the liturgical books of Francia, Spain, Germany and England, meaning that she is participating in one of the earliest recorded expressions of this tradition. As the people carry the branches back to the church, they sing hymns and imagine themselves in the place of the faithful who accompanied Jesus on his humble donkey into Jerusalem. The children, perhaps including some of her own, have gone ahead and are already waiting in the church. When the adults reach the west door, the children will sing them the hymn Gloria, Laus et Honor, and they will repeat the words back to them:
Gloria, laus et honor
tibi sit, Rex Christe, Redemptor:
Cui puerile decus prompsit
Hosanna pium.
All glory, praise and honour
to Thee, Redeemer King:
to whom the lips of children
made sweet Hosannas ring.
These words echo forward through time, from their 9th century origins to the lips of the woman of North Elmham and her children, all the way to today when they are still sung on Palm Sunday. So too is our interpretation of the medieval English past rooted in the present. Too often, Black people are excluded from the narrative of early medieval England in spite of the ample archaeological evidence that this is their story, too. And even when they are included, it is too often in degrading and racist narratives that diminish them to exotic "others", or to the foreign-born property of the "real" English people. Today, I ask you to remember the woman of North Elmham not as the racist reconstructions of past archaeologists and present white nationalists would imagine her -- but instead, how she herself would have probably wanted to be remembered: A faithful member of the Christian community at North Elmham, looking forward to the day of her resurrection in Christ.
Artist's Comments
I have wanted to draw a Black English woman for so long since starting this project. It has taken me a lot of time to catch up to all of the incredible scholarship and activism that scholars of colour within Early English studies have been leading. I hope I have done justice to their work, and to the memory of the woman of North Elmham, with this illustration today. You may have noticed that I did not use the word "Anglo-Saxon" to describe the people or culture of pre-Conquest medieval England. In the Resources section you will find a number of articles articulating how that term is deeply implicated in racism throughout the English-speaking world. It is on the work of these scholars that I have based my decision to retire that term, and I would encourage you to read some of them if you want to learn more about why, and maybe even reconsider using the term yourself.
I would particularly like to thank Mary Rambaran-Olm, both for her brave activism and scholarship on this topic, and also for personal help she has kindly given me on this and other matters. She has put herself out there time and time again, often thanklessly and in a way that has exposed her as a target to racist abuse. I hope that by creating art which shows Black people participating in medieval English life, as we have archaeological evidence that they did, I can help a little bit to correct the false narratives spun by white supremacists about the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" past. ~ February 13, 2021
I would particularly like to thank Mary Rambaran-Olm, both for her brave activism and scholarship on this topic, and also for personal help she has kindly given me on this and other matters. She has put herself out there time and time again, often thanklessly and in a way that has exposed her as a target to racist abuse. I hope that by creating art which shows Black people participating in medieval English life, as we have archaeological evidence that they did, I can help a little bit to correct the false narratives spun by white supremacists about the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" past. ~ February 13, 2021
Resources
Want to learn more about Black women, Palm Sunday, or race in medieval England? Here are some recommended resources. Because the issue of race in early medieval England has such a long and complicated history with ongoing implications for the present day, this resource list is longer than usual and is broken down into sections for ease of navigation.
Black women in medieval England
"Excavations in North Elmham Park 1967-72" by Peter Wade-Martins
This is the original archaeological report about the 11th century cemetery in North Elmham where the woman in my illustration was buried. She is referred to throughout as Inhumation 5. Be warned, though, that the authors use very racist language to describe her, sexualizing and objectifying her in a way they don't with any of the other people buried. This is part of a deeply problematic pattern in the studies of early medieval Europe, and England in particular. (See the article by Montgomery Ramírez listed below.)
"Colonial representations of race in alternative museums: The 'African' of St Benet's, the 'Arab' of Jorvik, and the 'Black Viking' by Paul Edward Montgomery Ramírez
This article provides a much-needed update to discussions like that in the original North Elmham report. Montgomery Ramírez goes through several cases of skeletons identified as belonging to people of colour in early medieval England. While his focus is on a man found buried in St Benet's and subsequently displayed and interpreted at Jorvik Viking Centre in York, he also calls out the racist treatment of the North Elmham woman in the original archaeological report.
"A note on the evidence for African migrants in Britain from the Bronze Age to the medieval period" by Caitlin Green
Green's blog is where I first learned about the North Elmham woman. In this post, Green looks at the evidence for people of African origin living in Britain and Ireland across several different periods. Much of this work is based on oxygen isotope analysis, which can show what region of the world someone grew up in. She estimates that based on oxygen isotope analysis, 13.8% of early medieval sites show evidence of at least one individual having spent formative years in Africa. While the figure for the early medieval period is relatively lower than for the Roman and late medieval periods, 13.8% is still quite an impressive number when you consider that many representations of early medieval Britain don't include any African people at all! Green hypothesizes that African migrants during the early medieval period may have found their way to Britain due to contacts between Britain, the Byzantine Empire, and North Africa. The North Elmham woman has not been subjected to oxygen isotope analysis, so we don't know whether she grew up in Africa and migrated to Britain, or whether the migrants were her parents or grandparents and she spent all her life in England. Green considers the possibility that the North Elmham woman arrived in Britain via Viking slavery here, though see Montgomery Ramírez's article linked above.
"Why the idea that the English have a common Anglo-Saxon origin is a myth" by Duncan Sayer
For a great deconstruction of the idea that "Anglo-Saxon" is a coherent biological identity, check out this article by Sayer. Although his article focuses on intermixing between Iron Age and Continental European migrant populations, much of what he says would also apply to the North Elmham woman, such as this quote about burials: "Someone who lived and died in the fifth or sixth century Anglo-Saxon village of Oakington could have been biologically related to an earlier inhabitant of England, a recent migrant from continental Europe or a descendent of either or both – they were all treated the same in death."
Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kauffman
While Kauffman's work deals with a period several centuries later than the one in this picture, I still highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about the experiences of Black people in medieval England. It really opened my eyes to how whitewashed cultural portrayals of late medieval England often are compared to the reality. The individuals explored in this book cover a wide range of experiences, from royal trumpeters to pearl divers, and from prostitutes to farmers.
People of Color in European Art History
On this blog you can see a huge variety of art showing people of colour, from ancient times to the early modern. Check out the 1000s tag for material closest to the time period of Women of 1000.
"The North Elmham and Fairford Women: Two Black Women in Tenth-Century England" by Florence Scott
Just a few months after I did this illustration, another artistic reconstruction of the North Elmham woman was published on the website Ælgif-who? The illustration is by Pollie Scott and is accompanied by a discussion of the North Elmham woman and another early medieval Black English woman identified through archaeology. You can also listen to an audio version of Scott's article on the website linked above.
Palm Sunday in early medieval England
Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England by Helen Gittos
The chapter "Going between God's houses: open-air procession in Anglo-Saxon England" provided me with some really great details about how Palm Sunday was celebrated in early medieval England. You can also read more about Palm Sunday in Ronald Hutton's The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, under the "Holy Week" chapter which addresses practices in the Middle Ages and beyond. This blog post includes Palm Sunday in a wider discussion of early medieval English Easter customs. And if you'd like to hear the Gloria laus which the children sang as the adults returned to the church, listen to this beautiful recording.
Ælfric's sermon for Palm Sunday on Wikisource
Ælfric of Eynsham was an important abbot who lived from around 955 to 1010. Many of his homilies survive today. You can read the full text of his Palm Sunday sermon in English with the Old English text right next to it. You can find the full collection of his surviving homilies here.
Race and the study of early medieval England
"Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting 'Anglo-Saxon' Studies" by Mary Rambaran-Olm
In this article, Rambaran-Olm illuminates how the way the term "Anglo-Saxon" has been used as a weapon against Black and Indigenous people throughout history is inextricably tied to the way it is also applied to the study of early medieval England. While medieval English people usually described themselves as Englisc or Anglecynn, the white scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries took up the previously little-used "Anglo-Saxon" as their term for that group while at the same time using the term to denote the highest racial caste in scientific racism. Rambaran-Olm lays out how the continued use of "Anglo-Saxon" to represent England's early medieval past ultimately can't be divorced from the way that the field treats scholars of colour. You can read more about the latter issue in her article "Anglo-Saxon Studies [Early English Studies], Academia and White Supremacy". Also recommended is her 3-part series "History Bites: Resources on the Problematic Term 'Anglo-Saxon'". Part 1 outlines the issue, Part 2 provides resources to deal with common reactions against retiring "Anglo-Saxon", and Part 3 has a list of further reading on the subject.
To learn more about the way that "Anglo-Saxon" studies have long been tied to racism, see also "The Study of Old English in America (1776-1850): National Uses of the Saxon Past" by María José Mora and María José Gómez-Calderón and "Old English Has a Serious Image Problem" by Mary Dockray-Miller. This thread by Erik Wade highlights how objections to the term "Anglo-Saxon" started in the mid-19th century, so this debate is not new. For a methodical treatment of the use of "Anglo-Saxon" in history and historiography, see David Wilton's "What Do We Mean By Anglo-Saxon? Pre-Conquest to the Present".
"Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages" series on The Public Medievalist
This series of articles is a really good introduction to the relationship between racism and the Middle Ages. There are articles looking at a wide variety of topics, from medieval ideas of "race" and prejudice (particularly anti-Semitism) through to modern appropriations of the medieval past by white supremacists. There are also articles about notable people of colour from medieval history and about medieval Africa. See for example "Were Medieval People Racist?" by Paul B. Sturtevant and its sequels by Amy S. Kaufman and James Hill. However, Sierra Lomuto has written a valid critique of the project, so I'd recommend keeping her words in mind while going through the articles. Useful bibliographies on race and medieval studies can be found here and here.
"Decolonizing Anglo-Saxon Studies: A Response to ISAS in Honolulu" by Adam Miyashiro
Miyashiro's essay is a response to a 2017 conference hosted by the International Society for Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honolulu. Miyashiro, who is of Native Hawaiian heritage, highlights the ways that the field of Old English studies continues to replicate colonial and even white supremacist patterns into the 21st century. Like Rambaran-Olm, Miyashiro's work draws attention to the way white gatekeeping is used to protect the field from critiques and institutional changes led by scholars of colour. (The International Society for Anglo-Saxon Studies has now changed its name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, or ISSEME.)
postmedieval Volume 11, issue 4 edited by Mary Rambaran-Olm, M. Breann Leake, and Micah James Goodrich
This volume of the journal postmedieval is described by the editors as "an issue of revolt". The volume tackles not only issues of race and exclusion in medieval times, but also racism and other forms of exclusion in medieval studies today. Articles engaging with early English history include the editors' introduction; "Homeland insecurity: Biopolitics and sovereign violence in Beowulf" by Adam Miyashiro; "This land is your land: Naturalization in England and Arabia, 500-1000" by Sherif Abdelkarim; and "The birds and the Bedes: Race, gender, and sexuality in Bede's In Cantica Canticorum" by Erik Wade.
Medievalists of Color
The Medievalists of Color organization offers networking, mentorship, and solidarity for anyone who is a person of colour studying the medieval period. There are also essays on their website about contemporary issues of racism facing scholars in the field. MOC was one of the founding partners of the ongoing RaceB4Race conference series, which is definitely worth checking out.
Black women in medieval England
"Excavations in North Elmham Park 1967-72" by Peter Wade-Martins
This is the original archaeological report about the 11th century cemetery in North Elmham where the woman in my illustration was buried. She is referred to throughout as Inhumation 5. Be warned, though, that the authors use very racist language to describe her, sexualizing and objectifying her in a way they don't with any of the other people buried. This is part of a deeply problematic pattern in the studies of early medieval Europe, and England in particular. (See the article by Montgomery Ramírez listed below.)
"Colonial representations of race in alternative museums: The 'African' of St Benet's, the 'Arab' of Jorvik, and the 'Black Viking' by Paul Edward Montgomery Ramírez
This article provides a much-needed update to discussions like that in the original North Elmham report. Montgomery Ramírez goes through several cases of skeletons identified as belonging to people of colour in early medieval England. While his focus is on a man found buried in St Benet's and subsequently displayed and interpreted at Jorvik Viking Centre in York, he also calls out the racist treatment of the North Elmham woman in the original archaeological report.
"A note on the evidence for African migrants in Britain from the Bronze Age to the medieval period" by Caitlin Green
Green's blog is where I first learned about the North Elmham woman. In this post, Green looks at the evidence for people of African origin living in Britain and Ireland across several different periods. Much of this work is based on oxygen isotope analysis, which can show what region of the world someone grew up in. She estimates that based on oxygen isotope analysis, 13.8% of early medieval sites show evidence of at least one individual having spent formative years in Africa. While the figure for the early medieval period is relatively lower than for the Roman and late medieval periods, 13.8% is still quite an impressive number when you consider that many representations of early medieval Britain don't include any African people at all! Green hypothesizes that African migrants during the early medieval period may have found their way to Britain due to contacts between Britain, the Byzantine Empire, and North Africa. The North Elmham woman has not been subjected to oxygen isotope analysis, so we don't know whether she grew up in Africa and migrated to Britain, or whether the migrants were her parents or grandparents and she spent all her life in England. Green considers the possibility that the North Elmham woman arrived in Britain via Viking slavery here, though see Montgomery Ramírez's article linked above.
"Why the idea that the English have a common Anglo-Saxon origin is a myth" by Duncan Sayer
For a great deconstruction of the idea that "Anglo-Saxon" is a coherent biological identity, check out this article by Sayer. Although his article focuses on intermixing between Iron Age and Continental European migrant populations, much of what he says would also apply to the North Elmham woman, such as this quote about burials: "Someone who lived and died in the fifth or sixth century Anglo-Saxon village of Oakington could have been biologically related to an earlier inhabitant of England, a recent migrant from continental Europe or a descendent of either or both – they were all treated the same in death."
Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kauffman
While Kauffman's work deals with a period several centuries later than the one in this picture, I still highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about the experiences of Black people in medieval England. It really opened my eyes to how whitewashed cultural portrayals of late medieval England often are compared to the reality. The individuals explored in this book cover a wide range of experiences, from royal trumpeters to pearl divers, and from prostitutes to farmers.
People of Color in European Art History
On this blog you can see a huge variety of art showing people of colour, from ancient times to the early modern. Check out the 1000s tag for material closest to the time period of Women of 1000.
"The North Elmham and Fairford Women: Two Black Women in Tenth-Century England" by Florence Scott
Just a few months after I did this illustration, another artistic reconstruction of the North Elmham woman was published on the website Ælgif-who? The illustration is by Pollie Scott and is accompanied by a discussion of the North Elmham woman and another early medieval Black English woman identified through archaeology. You can also listen to an audio version of Scott's article on the website linked above.
Palm Sunday in early medieval England
Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England by Helen Gittos
The chapter "Going between God's houses: open-air procession in Anglo-Saxon England" provided me with some really great details about how Palm Sunday was celebrated in early medieval England. You can also read more about Palm Sunday in Ronald Hutton's The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, under the "Holy Week" chapter which addresses practices in the Middle Ages and beyond. This blog post includes Palm Sunday in a wider discussion of early medieval English Easter customs. And if you'd like to hear the Gloria laus which the children sang as the adults returned to the church, listen to this beautiful recording.
Ælfric's sermon for Palm Sunday on Wikisource
Ælfric of Eynsham was an important abbot who lived from around 955 to 1010. Many of his homilies survive today. You can read the full text of his Palm Sunday sermon in English with the Old English text right next to it. You can find the full collection of his surviving homilies here.
Race and the study of early medieval England
"Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting 'Anglo-Saxon' Studies" by Mary Rambaran-Olm
In this article, Rambaran-Olm illuminates how the way the term "Anglo-Saxon" has been used as a weapon against Black and Indigenous people throughout history is inextricably tied to the way it is also applied to the study of early medieval England. While medieval English people usually described themselves as Englisc or Anglecynn, the white scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries took up the previously little-used "Anglo-Saxon" as their term for that group while at the same time using the term to denote the highest racial caste in scientific racism. Rambaran-Olm lays out how the continued use of "Anglo-Saxon" to represent England's early medieval past ultimately can't be divorced from the way that the field treats scholars of colour. You can read more about the latter issue in her article "Anglo-Saxon Studies [Early English Studies], Academia and White Supremacy". Also recommended is her 3-part series "History Bites: Resources on the Problematic Term 'Anglo-Saxon'". Part 1 outlines the issue, Part 2 provides resources to deal with common reactions against retiring "Anglo-Saxon", and Part 3 has a list of further reading on the subject.
To learn more about the way that "Anglo-Saxon" studies have long been tied to racism, see also "The Study of Old English in America (1776-1850): National Uses of the Saxon Past" by María José Mora and María José Gómez-Calderón and "Old English Has a Serious Image Problem" by Mary Dockray-Miller. This thread by Erik Wade highlights how objections to the term "Anglo-Saxon" started in the mid-19th century, so this debate is not new. For a methodical treatment of the use of "Anglo-Saxon" in history and historiography, see David Wilton's "What Do We Mean By Anglo-Saxon? Pre-Conquest to the Present".
"Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages" series on The Public Medievalist
This series of articles is a really good introduction to the relationship between racism and the Middle Ages. There are articles looking at a wide variety of topics, from medieval ideas of "race" and prejudice (particularly anti-Semitism) through to modern appropriations of the medieval past by white supremacists. There are also articles about notable people of colour from medieval history and about medieval Africa. See for example "Were Medieval People Racist?" by Paul B. Sturtevant and its sequels by Amy S. Kaufman and James Hill. However, Sierra Lomuto has written a valid critique of the project, so I'd recommend keeping her words in mind while going through the articles. Useful bibliographies on race and medieval studies can be found here and here.
"Decolonizing Anglo-Saxon Studies: A Response to ISAS in Honolulu" by Adam Miyashiro
Miyashiro's essay is a response to a 2017 conference hosted by the International Society for Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honolulu. Miyashiro, who is of Native Hawaiian heritage, highlights the ways that the field of Old English studies continues to replicate colonial and even white supremacist patterns into the 21st century. Like Rambaran-Olm, Miyashiro's work draws attention to the way white gatekeeping is used to protect the field from critiques and institutional changes led by scholars of colour. (The International Society for Anglo-Saxon Studies has now changed its name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, or ISSEME.)
postmedieval Volume 11, issue 4 edited by Mary Rambaran-Olm, M. Breann Leake, and Micah James Goodrich
This volume of the journal postmedieval is described by the editors as "an issue of revolt". The volume tackles not only issues of race and exclusion in medieval times, but also racism and other forms of exclusion in medieval studies today. Articles engaging with early English history include the editors' introduction; "Homeland insecurity: Biopolitics and sovereign violence in Beowulf" by Adam Miyashiro; "This land is your land: Naturalization in England and Arabia, 500-1000" by Sherif Abdelkarim; and "The birds and the Bedes: Race, gender, and sexuality in Bede's In Cantica Canticorum" by Erik Wade.
Medievalists of Color
The Medievalists of Color organization offers networking, mentorship, and solidarity for anyone who is a person of colour studying the medieval period. There are also essays on their website about contemporary issues of racism facing scholars in the field. MOC was one of the founding partners of the ongoing RaceB4Race conference series, which is definitely worth checking out.
