Blacks Britannica: Diversity in Medieval and Early Modern England

Africans have been present in England for more than two thousand years, but we rarely see them or hear about them. And often their existence is dismissed as a figment of 'political correctness' or 'wokism.'

This lecture will critically assess the myth of England's story as a 'sacred white space' and examine the evidence for diversity in medieval and early modern history. Africans are integral to English history and forgetting this diminishes Englishness, by preventing us from understanding ourselves.

A lecture by Dr Onyeka Nubia

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

[thequeenmidas]

The moral of the story is to Question EVERYTHING, even ignorant comments.

[neils]

I've been watching for 35 minutes and still haven't heard any estimates of how many and in what century. Does he ever give any figures?

[ricdontap]

The idea that there were a tiny few black people in medieval England can not be extrapolated out to mean " Africans are integral to English history" and so what anyway, all people have history. It doesn't matter what colour you are. Most people in England would have never left their village, The Iberian peninsular would have been like the dark side of the moon

[Groovz]

"Until the lion learns how to write every story will glorify the hunter"

[glorysamjolly]

Wow! I think for all my 25 years of school and learning was thrown out the window compared to this lecture

[kwakukumi]

Explains why none of my genetics track back to Africa in the last 300 years.

[BIATEC]

Have you noticed how practically every picture he has shown us states that the black person in it is unnamed, even the artist and author are unnamed.

[kemit]

Reference books: Ancient and Modern Britons by MacRichie, The Sufi by Shah, A Book of Beginnings by Massey, People of The Secret by Scott, Nature Knows No Color Line by Rogers ect...

[peterkerruish]

M8 I need to ask you- If Africans had invaded/ taken control of England way back then - why are they now so low on the hierarchy in England .. ???

[chrishewitt]

He's not correct that the Norman Kings had no Anglo-Saxon blood - King Henry I married Matilda of Scotland - Grand-daughter of the Saxon King Edmund Ironside. Henry I married her to gain more legitimacy with his Saxon subjects.

[mrsuperger]

A very interesting spin on history, but too many mistakes to be taken seriously, I'm afraid. Even the most basic historian acknowledges that The Moors were north African Muslims from the Maghreb.

[berniefynn]

By their very colour, they could never have been any more than a few here.

[salus]

right, and they made up 0.001 % of the population but gave us a bewildering array of things I suppose

[jnnyism]

The Tudors were defined by their welsh origins whereas the Stewart’s were defined by their Scottish heritage

[Kabeyavictoria]

Only Black Brits can do things as EXCELLENT as those !!!

[Infernal]

52:35 "Edward the black prince" is in reference to the armour he wore.

Any one who has studied the hundred year war knows this.

This is trash. An example trash history revisionism and not worth your time.

[balham]

“It’s a society in which there is considerable ethnic diversity.”
No, there isn’t.
Outside mainstream media and the cities, the UK is predominantly white.

[jb]

Strangely, for me the way to view historical events was quite the opposite. I always thought that the further back you go, you would find 'purer' historical data. This was based on the idea that a man was not classified by his skin color in ancient times but by his nation of origin. So the actual tainting of history is relatively recent.

[Fiddling_while_Rome_burns]

He says the 11th century to the 16th century.... "it is a period in history which modern people in Britain take thier ideas of identity from. It is the period in history people where say English identitiy was fashioned"

Well I've never heard anyone I know say this. In fact almost everyone I know would say the Industrial Revolution onwards is where British identity was forged. This is the period where working class identity came about in its modern form, where the workers movement rose and working class solidarity came into being.

However I appreciate Gresham College is not about working class, it's about middle class politics, empowerment, agenda and culture and part of middle class culture is to make sweeping genralisations that anything middle class is true for everyone and nothing else exists.

[xsiri]

43:00
40:00 people of African descents made a significant part of the moorish people ; 41:20
26:00 mono ethnicity placed on certain terminologies
15:30 false representation of people of African descents
11:43 Aristocracy position on the basis of not being from Anglo Saxon or English heritage.