 Why “Race”? William Chester Jordan Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey What is the purpose of giving the name race to a set of descriptors (lan- guage, law, customs, and lineage) that medieval writers attributed to con- temporary social groups? 1 What payoff is there in regarding medieval attitudes toward people of different “races” as “racist”? Medieval Catholic writers who labelled various groups did frequently use biological terminol- ogy ( gens, for example, and natio ), as is made clear in the essays offered in this collection. This labelling can be called racial, if one chooses to use the adjective as a synonym for ethnic or biological or as a substitute for a clumsy and old-fashioned phrase, like “related by blood.” But does the use of such labelling conjure racism as most people — scholars and nonscholars — understand it now? 2 In the Middle Ages, after all, not only was each race perceived or constructed as having other charac- teristics than its biological “unity,” but also racial characteristics changed over time. Twelfth-century writers, as Robert Bartlett documents, often cel- ebrated the Norman gens. Contemporary writers noted, among many char- acteristics, that the Normans spoke French as their mother tongue, were free, not servile, were bold not cowardly, and so on. These markers were part of their racial makeup. Yet, the Norman gens, as even its idolizers would have confessed, had once spoken Norse and been pagan; and it strained credibility to regard Northmen’s attacks on unarmed monks in the Viking Age as a particularly bold kind of boldness. Norman racial characteristics were, therefore, fluid. The Norman race had “improved” over time, but not, it seems, primarily because of exogamy, sexual mixture with other races. To modern racists who believe race is innate and immutable this last statement must seem like nonsense. Although the characteristics of race, as far as medieval historians understand and apply the concept, were not fixed forever, racial categoriza- Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31:1, Winter 2001. Copyright © by Duke University Press / 2001 / $2.00.