The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods Benjamin Braude The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), 103-142, Stable URL htp:/Mlinks jstor-org/sicisici=0043-5597% 28 199701%293%3A 54% 3A 1%3C 103%3ATSONAT%3E2,0,CO%3B2-A ‘The William and Mary Quarterly is currently published by Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hups/www.jstor.orgijournalsvomohundro.hen, Each copy of any part of @ JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission. STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org, hupslwww jstor.org/ Wed Jun 2 06:15:12 2004The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods Benjamin Braude Ie begins when the Flood subsides. Noah plants 2 vineyard, makes wine, and falls inca a stupor in hie tnt. Ham . . sees his father's nakedness and cells his cwo brothers what has happened. ... When Noah wakes up and learns what has hap- pened he lys a curse not upon Ham but upon Ham's son: “Accursed be Canaan, He shall be his brothers’ meanest slave.” . .. Whizzing forward to the medieval vetsions we learn more about the nature of Ham's misdeeds. He mocked Noah's nakedness, and invited his brothers to do the same (which they refused). Wha is ‘more this isnot the first of Ham's cransgressions. When they had al been on the ‘Ark together, Noah had insisted that everyone be sexually continent, but Ham, by the aid of a magic demon, slep with his wife. Next day Noah saw his foot- prints, and there grew up an enmity berween Noah and his son. Ham was pun- ished by being given a black skin, When the world came ro be divided up. Japheth received Europe, Shem got Asia and Ham was awarded Africa, —James Fenton IAT Oxford Professor of Poetry James Fenton writes is deeply embedded in the propaganda and scholarship of recent centuries. Indeed, the Curse of Ham, as it misleadingly has come to be called, has constituted one of the standard justifications for the degradation and enslavement of the African black in both South Africa and the American Benjamin Braue i auocate profesor of history at Boston College and research associate in rcigon at Smith College [An expanded version of chi cay will appear in my "Routes of Racism The Sere story of the Sons of Noah.” Eases versions more dered atthe Univesity of California, Berkeley, the Saecnth Century Scuies Conference San Fanchco, and Sanford Univers. For thet asistance 1 thank John Astbery, David Aazon, Daniel Boyan, Alice Clemente, Crug Davis, Christiane Delur, Lois Dubin, Egal Dose Quinby, Stanley Ekin, Andrew Ford, Paul Freedman, John Block Fnedinan David Goldenberg, Anthony Graton, Stephen Greeabat lain Macleod Higgins, Paul Kaplan, Maurice Kegel, Jams Morey, Beryl Sepimes, Matthew Resta Vggina Reinbarg, Aron Rodrigue. David Ruddy, Nel Salsbury, Jonathan Sehonch, Mask Stansbury, Steve Zipperstin, And the sais ofthe Biothique Nasional, Brsh Livay, Burns Library at Boston College, Firestone Library, Harvad Divinity School Library. Hougheon Library, Huncington Library, Newbery Library, and Pierpont Morgan Library. Rescarch support came ftom, among other Sources, the Sassgon lnternational Cener forthe Study of Antisemitim, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Spec thank ate duc the sal of the Insitute of Far Amerian History and Cilla as ‘well as he papant in che seminars where this and cree dats were discus, ‘The William and Mary Quarterly, sd Series, Vol. LIV, No. 1, January 1997104 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY South. It has been widely cited as evidence of the deep roots of racism in western civilization and a causal link between racism and slavery. While I do not wish to be caught in the crossfire of the “Origins” debate, I do propose to reexamine this particular aspect of the complex European attitude toward the Other that came to be transformed during the Renaissance.’ Such an examination will identify what was teuly old and what was truly new in early Euro-American attitudes toward blacks, Indians, Jews, and other strangers. ‘Much of what has been assumed to be medieval and well established curns ‘out to be, in many respects, novel and modern This issue is pare of a far larger debate that has raged on the fringe of American history: how and when did the discovery of the New World affect Europe? During the past quarter century the regnant claim has been that it had very litle influence on European thought in the early modern period and that the real changes were not fele until the Enlightenment.? The fram- ing of the question and the perspective of the historians who have responded have made that answer almost inevitable. The question and the response are both faulty because they arbitrarily divide space and time, They privilege the discovery of America over that of Africa, which both must be seen as intic mately related parts of the same process. It may be argued that the distin tion is justified because one was completely new while the other was merely an extension of knowledge about an existing continent. That is not precisely hhow the matter was seen in 1492. Then, both were regarded as the same— afterall, Christopher Columbus remained convinced that he had discovered another part of Asia. Although Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation should have ended that misconception, it did not.> Thus in fathoming the early European responses one should begin not with America but with Africa, not an easy task since Eurocentrie periodization and terrtorialization of human history have cut the early modernist off from that period and region. The arbitrary divisions they cause have created another difficulty Typically, modern historians are so struck by the continuity of terms, such as the Sons of Noah and Aftica, from ancient and medieval texts that they assume the meaning and valence are also the same. In fact, as I will argue, there was much new wine to be poured into these ancient bottles, but the process of mingling the varieties of Noah's grapes took place subtly, some- times slowly and gradually, sometimes precipitously, over the centuries Before turning to the evolving identities of Noah's sons, it should be acknowledged that belief in common Noachic descent gave no guarantee of human compassion, let alone mere indifferent aeceptance. On the contrary, 1 Renton, “A Shore History of Ant-Hamitam,” New York Review of Boos (Fe. 1, 1996) 7. Ses, among other works, Alden T. Vaughan, "The Origins Debate: Savery and Racism in ‘Seventcenth-Century Virgins,” in his Root of American Rao Enay on the Clonal Experience (New York, 1995) 19674 2 JH. Ellie, The Ol World and the New, 1492-160 (Cambridge, 1970), and Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Tests: The Power of Tradition and the Shack of Discovery (Cambridge, Mas. 1993) ‘S Esatar Zerubavel, Tere Cognit: The Mental Discovery of America (New Bronswick, NoJos1993SONS OF NOAH 105 the treatment of Jews, blacks, and Indians in the early modern world arose despite, not because of, theological acceptance of a shared genealogy. No matter how destructive European behavior was, it would have been even worse had the many conflicting visions of human origins—pre-Adami Polygenetic, diabolie, of animal ancestry, for example—gained general accep- tance. Considering the alternatives, the Sons of Noah were the only hope of. survival for the peoples whom European Christians came to dominate, The logic of common descent, once accepted, carried the assumption of a unified blood relation. This was consistent with the infinite capacity of people of the early modern era to connect and thereby explain everything, They still retained the traditional certainty, rooted in a belief in one god, that all were tunited and related through the single act of creation. As a result of Europe's explorations and the doubling of the known world, the sphere through ‘which this unity could in theory chen be traced was greater than it had ever been, This was a unique moment of opportunity for connecting and under- standing all human experience, which subsequent skepticism and worse were to destroy. Thus itis anachtonistic (as well as ethnocentric) to discuss one of the many ethnic-religious Others of this era without acknowledging their interconnectedness with all, both Self and Others. A case in point isthe early modern theory that the New World Indians were the Ten Lost Tribes of Isracl4 More generally, peoples whom today we might regard as totally dis- tinct could easily be linked in easly modern speculation, "To understand che shifting relationships and identities of the Sons of Noah we must approach the investigation with consistent principles of chronology and category. The investigation must begin notin the early mod- ern period, which provides no basis for comparison with itself, but centuries tatller, The turning point in the inquiry should not be 1492 but circa 1400, with the European exploration of sub-Saharan Affica. I is also essential co Jnerrogate the ancient and medieval evidence, not backward but, to the flli- ble extent we can, forward from the beginning and through the categories of identity and geography contemporary co the texts themselves, not notions of. racial distinctiveness dragged backward from our own era’ 4 By contrast, the rgnantscolatly approach hasbeen to impose anachronsiclly gid categriet of group ide in place of medieval and early modern conception, which were fw fd at nerd. St Richard 1H, Poplin, “The Ric an Fall ofthe Jewish Tn Theory,” in ¥. Kaplan, H. Mehoulan, and Popkin, es, Menaseb en lrael and His Werld {Ceiden 989) 67a, fora cca of mode scholashp' trestment of this theory a8 “an Inclectsl pariah” Awarenen oft would have prevented Winthrop D. Jordan's purlement, in White ver Bac: American Aad toward the Negro 150-82 (Chapel Hil, 968), 20-24 vet the differing English atau toward Afvicans and Indians wich zegard to conversion (0 ‘Christianity since the Indians might be eh Ten Lor Tribes, cei conversion might catty the most important rerultconccvable the Second Coming of Chris. No such cosmic outcome was tached tothe sovng of Altea souls, See Richard Cogley, “Job Elie ad the Origins of the American Indiane” Ear American Lvraure, 2 (98621987), 210-2, See also the femarlable frontpiece in Lanceloe Addison, The Proent State ofthe eer 2d ed. (London, 1676), an iluseration ofa hall naked Indian male in bret skirt and feathered headdress holding a sper ‘hat seems atached toa banner beating the tie of che book Only one work of modern scholarship makes such an attempt, Aro Bors, Der Turban om Babel: Geschichte der Meimungen aber Unprag and Vidal der Sprachen und Volker. 4 v0106 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY ‘This task must begin with the biblical story. The difficulty arises from what is meant by “the Bible.” The problem is not the textual issues raised by the Higher Crities but the subtler problem raised by the fact that che Bible, like America and Aftica as we know them, was also discovered and invented in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The notion of a fixed, widely avail- able, integral biblical text representing the Word of God speaking directly to ‘mankind (I use that word advisedly) with litle oF no gloss, no mediation, and little benefit of tradition, was an invention of Johannes Gutenberg and Martin Luther. Much attention has been lavished, deservedly, on the techni- ‘al achievements involved in perfecting movable type. Not as much has been given to the fact that what Gutenberg printed was, arguably, even more rev- colusionary than how he printed it, Ready availability of the entire Bible has become so unquestioning a part everyday life (and in hotel rooms, thanks to Gideon and his Society, parc of the furnishings) that some of us in post- Reformation Protestantized America forget that it did not always exist. The fifteenth-century Scriptures, Old and New Testaments as Christians call them, integrally presented without comment, gloss, or explanation, helped cteate the beginning of a rupture in the history of Christianity, as is well known. Theretofore Scripture, to the extent that it was accessible in a world in which literacy was limited, was entered through the gateway of traditional ‘exegesis diffused through a variety of other media, to a great degree oral and visual. The most popular Bibles of late medieval Europe, the so-called scho- liated Bible stories, were based on narrative commentaries such as that wri ten by the Parisian Peter Comestor (1110-1179). The Bible itself was rately accessible. One indication of this can be seen in the Bible quotations and stories in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (orginally mid-fourteenth cen- tury), which was the single most popular European work of secular literature in the late medieval, early modern period. The author of the Travel: had 's contribution is 20-page work of encyclopedic eu biblical times to che mid-toth century, More catalogue research on the constuction of ‘ace: However, he devotes no special attention to the way in which the European discovery and Penecation of the unknown might have changed such notions, Tha, by contast isthe prime focus of Giuliano Giorsi Adame ei nuove monde, la nacite deilanirpologia come deli ale ale: dal gencloie bible ale trie razz (300-1700) Wlrence, 197). Clio wa 2st dent af modern intellectual history whore rescrch focused on the origins of racism, The ‘erength of his work is ts ehorough survey ofthe polemics that arose in early modern Europe ‘over the exgin of the New World Indians It giver il attention tothe medieval conten ot ‘of which this debate grew and thus is unable zo define what i truly new. lies als ignores the parle diseasion that arose over he origin and ientey ofthe peoples of Alia, Even so these two importane but neglected works have much to contibute fo understanding the origins of ‘acim in European and American society. Gomi covers atopic similar to Anthony Prgden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Onin: of Comparative Ecology (Cambridge, 1983; 2d ed. 1986), which, chough beter known in the Englshespeaking war much narrower. The principal diference betwen the two i bite: Despite «flue wo eam ine the medieval understanding ofthe Son of Noab, Glioss at les acknowledge that it was the dominant genelogicalflamework through which carly modein Europeans attempted to view the Indians. Pagden ignores this ey isu, resting his Spaniards (mostly Catholic pies) {Sif chey were pagan dicpls of Aristore who had ever heard ofthe Bibl tion tha survey the mubject From than analy, aonethles constitutes the starting point fSONS OF NOAH 107 access, a8 a variety of meticulous studies dating back to the nineteenth cen- tury demonstrate, to a uniquely impressive library, which lacked, so ic seems, a complete Bible, however one defines the canon. That is the conclusion to be drawn from the gross misrepresentations, particularly of the Old Testament, that mark this work.® Gutenberg's achievement was not only that hhe made it possible for an entire Bible to become widely available but, more significant, that the text he helped to publicize purported to be the direct tunglossed and uninterpreted, Word of God. Such a text did not mean that the earlier manuscript tradition, glossed and interpreted, immediately disap- peared. In fact, it was very quickly translated onto the printed page However, such a work as the glossed Geneva Bible was a poor imitation of the far richer medieval tradition, and the logic of print capitalism determined that the cheapest means of production ultimately prevailed.” The sheer vol- ‘ume of unglossed texts overwhelmed the traditional learned versions. What docs this revolution in the nature of the Bible mean for the story of the Sons of Noah? It represents a movement from medieval polyphony to modern monophony in the understanding of the Bible. In other words, because for medievals the complete biblical text was rarely available and, when available, variable, and further, was typically understood through a variety of interpretive media vital for the illiterate faithful, it could easily encompass many different and even contradictory meanings. This was par- ticularly true for passages that had no centeal theological significance and that contained the most politically responsive of traditional genres, the genealogy. More than two decades ago, David P. Henige, ina brilliane study focused on the oral traditions concerning African royal genealogies, demon- strated that the political role such lists have played requires chat their chronological details be scrutinized with the greatest of caution.* By defini tion, an oral tradition is particularly subject to regular manipulation in response to the political needs of the moment. Although the Bible was not in the conventional sense an oral tradition in the Middle Ages, it nonetheless bore many of aspects of oral indeterminacy. The content and meaning of a biblical genealogy in preprint Europe were much more variable than in post- print Europe, A striking example of this is the invention of medieval Christian pseudepigraphical commentators, the so-called fourth son of Noah, Jonathan, who did not long survive the introduction of the printed Bible.” Printing not only fixes words to the page, it also helps fix meaning to The Penguin edion (C, W. R. D. Mosley, sant, The Tres of Sir Jobn Mandeville [New York, 1983) regularly noves the divergences berween Mandeville’ citation of Scripture and the standard Vulgate. These canbe explained by the conflicng textual craitons ofthe Middle ‘Ages More indicative of Mandeville’ fgnrance of the Bible are mistakes about basi questions in biblical ehronology, most nowbly confusion of events before and afer the Flood 7 Compare the Geneva Bible (The Geneva Bible (facsimile ofthe 1560 edition}, (Madison, 1960), tthe older tradition represented by the Biblia Larne cum Glos Ordnaria, Facile Reprne of the Edie Princeps,Adolpb Ruch of Serb. rel neo. Kare Froclich and MargaterT Gibson (Brepol-Turnhout, Beg, 1993) Henige, The Cromolgy of Oral Tradition: Quest for Chimera (Oxto 9 See Stephen hhe Legend of the Fourth Son of Nosh," Haroard Theological Review, 73 (980). 331-30, and Arnold Williams, The Common Expositor din Acount of the108 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY those words. As we shall see, the rise of print capitalism, coinciding as it did with the European invention of Africa and America and all that followed there- from, slowly and eventually helped fix 2 meaning to the story of the Sons of ‘Noah that did not do justice to its polyphonic ancient and medieval traditions. How then should we treat the generations of biblical comment and interpretation? As statements about what the Bible originally said they are dubious, but as means of insight into the values of later generations they are worthy of investigation. What we have is a series of readings that reflect a range of the ethnic and geographical assumptions of each age. If we disen- tangle the biblical vext from its later interpretations, we can recognize the degree to which creation ex nihilo is characteristic of the construction of these biblical identities. Each successive interpretation docs help shape the next. There is a chain of tradition, but the founding link in that chain, the biblical passage, remains the most determinative. If it is obscure, cradition with such loose anchorage cannot have as binding authority. ‘As even the most cursory reading of Genesis 9 and 19 immediately demonstrates, the connection between the biblical account of Noah and his offspring and che modern interpretation, as provided by Fenton, is tenuous.!® ‘Not only does the conflict berween the misbehavior of Ham and the cursing of Canaan defy simple explanation, but there is the more basic problem of the identities of Ham, Shem, and Japhet and their offspring, The genealogical list- ing of chapter 10 is repetitive, contradictory, and manifestly incomplete: i ists sons without daughters; not surprisingly, itis accompanied by no map; most of the names are unidentifiable, and, to the questionable extent that they have been identified, they do not fit modern geographical, ethnic, o linguistic prin- ciples of organization. Although this lst is the source ofthe modern linguistic term, “Semitic languages,” and the pseudoanthropological racial term, “Smite,” the two groupings do not correspond. Thus Cush, the son of Ham, whom most, but by no means all, commentary has identified with Ethiopia, fathered a people who speak Semitic languages. Furthermore, Cush’s son Nimrod, who provoked more pages of exegesis than any other figure in this genealogy, is located by almost all in the Asiatic and presumably Semitic stronghold of Mesopotamia. Many of the sons of Japhet, the so-called European, can be linked to Asia Minor and Central Asia Commentaries om Gone, 137-163 (Chapel Hil, 1948), 160. A ae medieval work sil inluded bios se The Nuremberg Chronicle Facimil of Hartman Scbede Buch der Crniken printed ‘by Anton Kobergr (493), (Nevt Yotk, 1966), fl 4s. A century later, his existence was di ‘niseds Benedict Peveivs (331610), Commentarioram er dipetationum in Geneim (Lyon 1397) 4394-95. On the importance and iaflaence of Percrius See Willams, Common Expositor 18 To gain some snte ofthe approach of modern el scholarship tothe text eflecting 4 numberof eligious views, there an immense library, including John A. Skinner, Critical lind Exegeical Commentary om Genet in The International Creal Commentary on the Holy ‘Siprus ofthe Ol and New Teams (New York, 910), F- A. Spier, Genesis The Anchor Bible (Garden City, N. Y., 1964); Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary. Genesis (Philadelphia, 1985); Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genes, Chapin 17 (Grand Rapids Mich. 1990) and U. Cassuco, A Commentary onthe Book of Gena ans, Iral Abrahams, 2 vol, Jerse, 1961-1969)SONS OF NOAH. 109 ‘The lesson to be drawn from such contradictions is that modern con- cepts of race, nation, language, and geography are irrelevant to the biblical text. The classical terms Asia, Africa, and Europe are also absent, and, more subtly, the geographical valence and content that later generations have imposed on these terms are also alien to the geographical view of biblical ‘writers and redactors. Given the arbitrary quality of geography, ths is hardly surprising. After all, Europe is little more than a pimple on the landmass of Asia. Unconvincingly divided as itis from Asia by the modest Ural moun- tain range, it has considerably less right to a separate continental existence than does India, which European geographers have reduced to a subconti- nent. Cultural hegemony along with objective physicality plays a role in defining geography. All of this begins to be self-evident if we stop to realize that the notion of the division of the world into three and more continents, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, did not exist before the seventeenth century. The terms Asia, Aftica (Libya in the older classical usage), and Europe existed centuries earlier, but they did not always mean what they mean today. They were regions of one world, not separate continents. A glance at a medieval map will demonstrate how closely each was linked to the others Furthermore, for most of history, Europe, Asia, and, in particular, Africa represented little more than their coastal exposure to the Mediterranean Sea, a meaning explicit in the original term, Libya. Even among mapmakers themselves, “Europe,” “Asia,” and “Africa” had litle significance. How else to explain the transposition of “Europe” and “Africa” on the elaborate Hereford mappamundi of the early fourteenth century?! The Indias (like Ethiopia) were worlds unto their own, resembling Statpoint, the island of Dr. Doolittle’s discovery that was constantly floating between what we might today call Africa and Asia. It was only as the world ever so slowly became bigger and better defined after the discoveries of the fifteenth, six- teenth, and subsequent centuries that the notion of constant and consistent, separate and distinct, continental existence began to emerge. Neat and clear-cut continental divisions among the three sons are not conly completely alien to the biblical text, they ate also incomprehensible to the ancient and medieval mind. Denys Hay addressed this issue in a far- reaching essay, Europe: The Emergence of an Idea. Hay alerts us to the dangers 1 Denys Hay, Barape, the Emergence of am Ide, tev. ed. (Edinburgh, 1968 org. pub. 1957), $4 ‘Seymour Phillips, “The Outer World ofthe European Middle Age,” in Stust B Schwarta, ed. Implicit Undersandingr Obtereing. Reprting, and Reflecting onthe Encounters berocen Europeans and Orher Peples onthe Early Madera Era (Cambtidge, 1994) 3-6 Jo-3. For the breath of che ealy modem meanings of Ethiopia se Perris, Commenartoram, 2409-22. I thank my daughter, Rachel Sara Dubin Braude, for tlling me the aame of Deol’ inland. Even in ehe roth century, Europeans continucd to have trouble locating the country in Afia ce, for cxample, the eminenly respectable snd Victorian Pall Mall Gazette, ‘Ape 8, 186, which described the king of Erhipia at an "Asatc monarch,” For mote on he Clreumstances of this identification see my, "Palgrave and His Cries, the Origins and Implcstions of « Concoversy: Part I, the Nineteenth Ceneury—the Abysinian Imbrogio” Arabian Sous, (985), 97-09,uo WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY cof anachronistically imposing the rupturing modern concepts of ethnic-terri- torial purity, compactness, and integrity on earlier mapless societies: It is extremely difficule even co imagine the confusions of nearly all medieval units of land. We now think of a country as a self contained area on a map; and so with counties, bishoprics, and so forth, Such crisply defined regions were seldom found before the nineteenth century. .. . Within the frontiers of states old ambigu- ities lingered until the end of the Ancient Regime. An English county or bishopric was interrupted by areas belonging to other counties and bishopries; at the lowest level the parochial “system” ‘was full of curious irregularities: in France the élection retained such of the chaotic confusion which it had from the start... In the middle ages men survived without maps, at any rate maps comparable to those we have been provided with for the last cen- tury and a half. Cartography has its place in the story told below. Here it. must be said that one cannot overemphasize the consequences flowing from a mapless world, nor those which followed on the con- ‘seruction of reliable two-dimensional pictures of the earth and its ‘parts. These problems are entirely neglected in historical atlases, which ‘how medieval and carly modern European counts, bishoprics,coun- ties and 50 forth, with all the regularity and neatness they have acquired in recent times!3 This problem exists on the small scale of county and country. It is even more acute for the vast regions that moderns label continents. On the smaller scale, the ancient or medieval observer could atleast rely on the com- mon sense of everyday experience, but to imagine a continent was barely possible. Thus even when medieval commentators linked one Son of Noah to one region, as some did, it would have been completely alien to their worldview to imagine that this linkage could be neat and consistent. Having emphasized the indeterminate quality of Genesis 10 as well as the sea changes in perspective (ie, the nature of the Bible and the evolution of cartography) that have colored our varied understandings of i¢ through the centuries, we must also recognize that the chapter does contain a few clear notions, The most important is that all humanity is descended from Noah through his three sons. Another is that the children of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, to the limited degree that they can be identified, did not inhabit ethnically homogeneous territories but rather dwelled in overlapping regions of the world. Although a few consistent genealogical links can be drawn (eg. Shem sired Israel), itis impossible to stare which son fathered which people. Significantly, among medieval Christian commentators, even the Semitic link could be redefined, because Christianity’s claim to be Verus Irae! could mean that it was the True Israel in the flesh as well as the spirit. "9 Hay, Burp, sei (mphasi added). This statement appears only in the aoSONS OF NOAH m In view of its absence from the Bible, when began the assumption that the three sons of Noah were linked, respectively, o the three regions of the Old World? Those pseudepigraphical writings (composed between the second cen- tury a.c.t, and the fourth century c.f.) that contain references to Shem, Ham, and Japhet draw no such connection.'* Toward the end of the first century of the Christian Era, slowly and tentatively the connection started to be made. The first to do so was the Hellenized Jew Flavius Josephus (372-100), who ‘eschewed the simple linkage we know today. In the midst of a long, careful, and detailed exposition, he listed the specific lands that Noahs descendants acquired, noting in passing that che Japhetic descent had territory in Europe and Asia, whereas Ham's offspring spread into Africa and Asia, and only Shem was limited to one region. In effect, Josephus’s designations were that Japhet was Eurasian, Ham Afrasian, and Shem Asian, The more learned and precise Christian commentators followed his lea. The rabbinic tradition ignored, and probably was unaware of, Josephus. One study claims that “Europe,” “Asia,” and “Africa” were not linked to the Sons of Noah in Jewish Bible commentary until che early sixteenth century.!6 The classic starting point for Jewish exegesis, the midrashic commentary on Genesis 9-10, compiled between the thitd and seventh centuries, Genesis Rabbah (chapter 37), connected Noah's sons to none of these regions, with one curious exception. Japhet's sons are placed in the Euphrates Valley, Thrace, and Africa (), among other sites. A modern editor has raised the possibility chat Phrygia, not Africa, was intended, but the presence of Africa in this context suggests that ancient and medieval Jewish writers, redactors, and readers, like the makers of the Hereford mappamundi, had litle fixed notion of ethnicity or geography and could imagine Japhet’ descendants in one region as easily as another.” Some fourteenth- and fifecenth-century texts—as we shall see—do link Japhet with Ethiopia, ‘A later midrashic source, Pirkei de Rabbi Eliceer, provides yet another conception of the geographical identity of Poah’s progeny: Noah brought his sons and his grandsons, and he blessed them with their... settlements, and he gave them as an inheritance all '4-The mos extensive discussions tein The Book of abil (od century), chaps. 7-10, fa and tans UL Chases, The Apocrypha and Paudiigapha-, (Oxford. 193), 23-09, and in anew translation by 0. S. Wintermute, The Old Tenement Pendrpgrapha,* vosy ed. James, H. Charlesworth (Garden ivy, N.Y. 198)-1985), 296-75. Brier sferenes ae in Apoaype of ‘Adam (Firs o Fourth Century a.) chap. yeas. G. MaCrae, bid. tpt Temes of he Tule Pararh Second Cenuty 8.) chap. 6, tess. H.C. Ke, iid, 79; and Pred Philo (its Cenary a .), chaps 6 tans. D, J Hartington bids 2309-10 '5 Josephus, jewish Ansigusies (Dk. I, ses. 109-50), in HL. Se, J. Thackeray, eran, Josephus vl (London, 1930) Jonathan Schorschy “The Black Mieror: Tracing Blackness and Othetnes in Pre Modern ‘ewish Thought" (Master of Jewish Stdis thers, Graduate Theol Union, Berkley, 199955. ° Genesis Rabbab, ed and tans. H. Freedman, in Midrwh Rabbah, ed Freedman and Maurice Simon, vol 1 (London, 1939), 295-101. Goss Rabbah (chap. 37, ce. 2) (Venice 1545, fol 2ar fora modern critical textual commentary on this passge sce Berahit Reba mit kris chen Apparas und Kommentar. ed. J. Theodor with additional coreections by Cr Aleck erusaem, 1965). 1349-46m WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY the earth. He especially blessed Shem and his sons . . . and he gave them the habitable earth. He blessed Ham and his sons. and he gave them as an inheritance the coast of the sea. He blessed Japheth, and his sons . . . and he gave them for an inheri tance the desert and its fields."'8 ‘According to this translation of this manuscript, which does have other ver- sions, Shem, not surprisingly, gets the best land, Ham gets the coast, and Japhet the desert. This implies a concept of geography and of the dispersion of the sons very different from that which modern scholarship has taken for granted. Yet another, stronger, indication of how alien the classical tripartite division was to the Jewish tradition can be seen in The Josippon, a centh- century pseudepigraphical chronicle composed in southern Ttaly and based fon a version of Josephus's Jewish Antiguitis. Despite its self proclaimed identification with Josephus, its discussion of the Sons of Noah ignores Aftica, Asia, and Europe.’ By contrast, Josephus's own writings constituted one of the most impor- tant treasures for Christian understanding of the Bible well into the era of Cotton Mather.2° Ie was Josephus's complex Afrasian, Eurasian, and Asian designations (along with the details of the specific region each son had acquired) that were followed by Jerome (3402-420) and by Isidore of Seville (itca 560-636).2" Perhaps the first and certainly the most widely cited authority to reduce the complex associations to what became the conven- tional three-son, three-continent view was Alcuin (732-804). Aleuin's close association with Chatlemagne’s teligious-political empire building and his commitment to the education of che Frankish population at large explain 18 Gerald Fridlander, rans. and ed, Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer (New York, 1965: org. pub 6), chap. 23, 173-75. This easton, based largely on 3 rathish-cenery ms of Spanish ‘eral erg, ako notes the color ofthe sons and eheie ollspring—Shem, “dark but comely.” Ham, “dark lke the sven," and Japhet, entry white” Schorch, "Black Miro,” tal, has ‘xamined some ofthe textual variants inthis pasage suggesting tat color and is valence may have shied overtime. This subject requits more exploration. 1 David Fuser, ed, The oppo eraslem, 1978) 13-9 2 See, for example, Lous Feldman, "The Influence of Josephus om Cotton Mather’ Bibs Americana: \ Seay in Ambigui” in Hebrew andthe Bible Americ. he Fst Two Centar, ‘fe Shalom Goldman (Hanover, N-HL, 1993), 122-5, which coves more than is le implies, 21 See Sent Jerome? Hebrew Quesons om Genes, trans. and comment CTR. Hayward (Orford, 193), 39-40 and editor's comment, 13842, which makes clear Jerome's reliance on Josephs. Iidore of Seville, Etmolopar: Edicion Bilingue, 2 vols. ad ed. (Madrid 1999), e645 (be 7, chap. 6, vers 16-2). 742-64 (bk. 9, chap. 2). See alto Hugo of St. Victor, Aanesationes Elciatriae in pentateachon. ol 75 of Ptralgiae Cars Compleat, Seis Latin ‘a. JP. Migne (Pare, 1844-1864), (henceforeh PL), col. 49, and Pererus, Commenarorum, $5398. The craitona exepsis ofthe erly Gres fhes, which can be dated ro the sth century, “ko relies on Josephus and, though i omic his reference to Ham in Asia and Shem in Asa, ‘doe link Japhet to Eurasia; se La Chane rar le Gente, Edvon Ingrale Uy chapitos 4 2 1 Trado Bxrgeice Grace, vl. 3. ed. Frangoise Pett (Louvain, 1993) 85-90. The anonymous toth-censury work, The Early Syrian Pathers on Genes, ed. and tans. Abraham Levene (Condon, gh 84-85 asempts no such idcatiiation of any of Noah's progeny, though its praise of Nimo shouldbe scen ar Syian etic pedeSONS OF NOAH 13 the sound-bite oversimplification of what he knew from Jerome and Isidore. Alcuin’s neat formulation first appeared in a didactie work that was pare of his concerted program to bring Latin learning to ignorant Franks.#2 The true complexity of Alcuin’s own deeper understanding of the issue can be seen in two works by his disciple Maurus Hrabanus (or Rabanus) (circa 780-856), the encyclopedic compilation De Rerum Naturis (also known as De Universo, ‘written between 842 and 846) and Commentariorum in Genesin (written 819), that were intended for a clerical, not a lay, audience. In these, the descen- dants of Noah are scattered throughout the Mediterranean basin and western Eurasia, an interpretation drawn from Isidore and consistent with Josephus, The tension evident within the Alcuin-Hrabanus viewpoint is consistent with the corpus of ancient and medieval comment on the subject. Aelfric's (circa 955-1010/1015) introduction to his Anglo-Saxon translation of the Bible follows Alcuin.2# The Glosse Ordinaria, which dates from the mid- twelfth century, does as well, but it recognizes some of the geographical complexity of Ham’s and Japher's portions. Peter Comestor, author of the immensely popular Historia Scholastica (written between 1169 and 1175), cited Aleuin’s assignment, giving ic even wider distribution than the original, which he balanced with a second, more complicated, description that called the simple tripartite division into ques- tion.26 The source Comestor cited for the latter view, Josephus, was in fact far more authoritative than Alcuin and received far more space on Comestor’s page. What Comestor included and what he omitted illustrate the ambiguities of the medieval sense of Noachic geography. Comestor first introduced Alcuin’s tripartite division and chen, with the words “vel expres- ss" which may be translated as “another view claims,” he presented a pur- ported summary of Josephus's discussion of the same issue, listing the sons, their descendants, and the specific local regions that they acquired. What makes Comestor’s version particularly significant is that the original text of Josephus, as we now have it and as Christian scholars from as eatly as the time of Jerome onward have cited it, did mention, albeie in che complex fashion we have noted, Africa, Asia, and Europe, which Comestor omitted. Comestor's revision leaves the reader with the possibility thae the three clas- sical regions of the world had litle to do with Noah's three sons.2” ® Alcuin, Incrrgations et roponsonein Genin, PL ol 100, col 53. Fo English sans lation sce Hay, Europe 3-39 2 Maurus Rabanus (Heabanus], De Unive Commentarioru, PL, 307, cle. 526-28 7 Samuel John Crawford, ed, The Old Engl Venom of he Hepatush Alfie's Treatie (0 the Old and New Testament and his Prefee 1 Genes. (London, 1969; ri pbs 192), 1, 9S sible Larine cum Gla Ordinaria,intt. roshlich and Gibson 4-42 26 Comestor, Misoria chalice, PL, vo. 198 cls, 1087-89. See ssa James H, Morey. “Pete Comesor Biblical Paraphrse, and the Medieval Popular Bible” Spealam, 6899). ©, A late French adaption of Comestor's Latin rext retains che Alcuin continental ipa division but omits the Jonephus passage substiating for tthe simple biblical genealogy with ao further geographical identifications. See "C'est Ia bible hycoriae en Francois), France, ca. 1950," tans. ad expansion Guyard des Moulins, Houghton Library (MS Typ 35. PL, vol. 114, cols. 437-45, andmy, WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY ‘At least one of Comestor’s readers may have so concluded. The Middle English Genesis (citca 1250), based on the Histaria Scholastica, noted Noah's offspring but neglected, with one exception, to mention whither they dis- persed. The only one whose destination merited attention was Noah's great- grandson (through Ham and Cush) Nimrod, who, according to a lengthy and consistent extrabiblical tradition, built the Tower of Babel.2® The roughly contemporary La Bible francaise du Xllle sitele, which was accompa- nied by an extensive commentary, similar but not identical to the Glos Ordinaria, provided far more detail as wo their destinations but completely avoided the three classical regions.29 On the other hand, the Curtor Mundi, a verse history of the world composed in Middle English around 1300 and based on more extensive sources than the Middle English Genesis, Follows Alcuin, as does John Trevisa’s Middle English translation of Bartholomacus Anglicus’s De Proprietasibus Rerum.® In view of the distinctive medieval approach to geographical space and the suggestion that Alcuin's own under- standing may have been more sophisticated than his catechitical summary alone suggest, it is clear that the medieval understanding did not simply and consistently allor fica to Ham, Asia to Shem, and Europe to Japhet. ‘There isa significant medieval tradition in which such an approach pre- dominates, in the so-called Isidorean of T-O Maps, These are circles (hence the O) in which a'T (or cross, as I argue) is formed by the representation of, ‘Shem or Asia in the upper half, Japhet or Europe on the lower left, and Ham or Aftica in the lower right. These illustrations are not maps in the modern sense of the term, that is, they do nor purport to fepresent an objec: tive geographical-spaial realty; rather, they convey a religiously inspired iconic image. They should not be called T-O Maps but Cross and Orb 2 Olof Aragare, ed, The Middle Englh Gents and Exodus... (Lund, 1968), 68-7, ® Michel Quereuil Le Bible framatse du Xl Edison crtgu dele Gonde (Gener 1988), 149-46, This was one of ehe more widely avalale versions ofthe Old Testament suri. ing in 10 ms. 50 Sardh M. Hori, ed, The Sothern Version of Cur Mundi (Outawa, 1978), tor. This work as been preserved in 9 mss. Se also On the Properties of Thing Jobm Teva's Traiaion 9fBartholomacus Angin’ De Praprasibus Ream, ed: M. C. Seymout (Oxford, 197). 2726 which has been preserved in 8 mur and priced eitons. Other Bish sources present the Same cricontinental division: 1. John of Fordun, Chronice Gents Srtrum, od. Willan. Skene (Edinburgh, 187), 6: Chronicle of the Seorch Nation, tens, Felix}. H. Skene, ed. Wiliam Skene (Edinburgh, 1872) 3-4. Fordun’s chronicle war compored 1384-1987 and survives in 26 mss and 6 prined editions of varying accuray and completeness, Le ncades Egypt in the bor des of Asia Afica “proper” is roughly the equivalent of modern-day Tunisia. 2. Andrew of Wyntoun, The Orynale Crontil of Scotland, ed, David Laing (Edinburgh, 1872), 135-33 Completed around 1426 c survives in at east 5 ms and ewo printed editions». ohn Capgreve’s Lives of St. Augustine and St. Gilbert of Sempringham, and « Strmon (efote 140, ot Janes. Munro (London, 190). 5-4. Capgrave's language suggest sgnificane historical awarenes of the changes tha had evolved in geographical deny and terminology: Shems descendants took the eastern part of the world, "leped now Asia’; Japhet's descendants that pat of the world “cleped now Europa.” "And the chat eam of Cam were sere to dwele in that pattie whech is cleped Africa, where cis gloious man [Se. Augustine] was bore” Jon Capgrene’ Abbrenaion of Conc (ea. 1462-146) ed. ett J. Leas (Oxford, 193) 18-20, fl meh tion Asa and Europe but does note Ham's connection with Aca and PhoeniciaSONS OF NOAH us Icons. Furthermore, they do not correspond to Isidore of Seville’s actual description of the Noachie patrimony but are an oversimplification. The attribution Isidorean derives from their appearance in copies of Isidore’s works originating at least a century after his death. Their internal legend takes three different wordings: 1. Japhet, Shem, Ham; 2. Europe, Asia, ‘Africa; or 3. Japhet/Europe, Shem/Asia, Ham/Africa. I suggest that the origic nal biblical impulse behind the Cross’and Orb Icons was expressed in the three sons alone. Only subsequently did the three regions come to be substi- tuted for or joined with the sons. The oldest such icon (eleventh century) actually depicted in the comprehensive catalogue of medieval maps bears the names of the three sons alone and omits the regions.%! Medieval complexity and modern distortion are even more evident in the Travel: of Sir John Mandeville. Arguably this is the most important single work for the study of the European conception of the Other in the late medieval-early modern period. It has been regularly described as the era's secular bestseller. Whether its readership execeded that of the Hiscoria Scholastica is difficule to say, but it certainly was comparable, and the book's popularity dwarfed that of all the other sources cited thus far. Composed the mid-fourteenth century by an author whose identity has yet to be con- vincingly established, the book purports to be the true account of an actual pilgrimage to the Holy Land and an adventurous voyage to Egypt as well as to mysterious points further east, beyond Cathay. The author claims to have been an English knight in the service of both the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt and the Mongol Great Khan of China. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship has demonstrated that the book owes more to a library of works of geographers, chroniclers, and true travelers than it does to the limited experience of its armchair-traveling author.*® There can be no doubt that in Europe it was the most widely read work of travel between 1350 and 1600. Even today it survives in some ten languages, at least 250 manuscripts, and 38 Mazel Destombes, ed, Mappemondes, A.D. 1200-1500 (Amsterdam, 196) 29-4 and plate Is. Alhough eater examples ae listed, they ate not eeproduced. Ths question demands Investigacion OF See Benjamin Baude, “Mandevill’s Jews among Others” in Prins and Travels 0 ‘the Holy Land, Precedings of the Seventh Annual Syipasion ofthe Pip Mand Fibel Kutenich (Chair Jewish Giza, od: Bryan F. LeBeau 2nd Menahem Mor (Omaha, 1996) 41-88 Theres now a scholarly consensus that Mandeville was «prevdonym fo the author whore trae ‘entity i unknown, The most convenient summary of scholarship on Mandel x Mlichell C Seymour, Si John Manville, English fe!) Writers of he Late Middle Age, vol. (Aldershot Eng, 993). Fora French perpectve consuls Christiane Del, Le Litre de Jehon de Mandeville, tine idogaphi" aw XIVe see (Loweain-a-Neuve, 1988). The German Mandevilles have been amined most recently by Klaus Ridder, Jean de Mandeviles "Reson" Sruien zur aberlfrang (ehichte der denichen ieretcung des Ono von Diemeringen (Munich, 1990), and Etc John Moral Sir Jobw Mandevills Renebechreibung (Berlin, 1974). For the sources of Mandeville’ Travel sce Albert Bovenschen, Die Quele fr die Reebochredbung der Johann von Mandevile (Berlin, 188), also published as "Untersuchungen Uber Johann von Mandeville und die Quellen seiner Reisebescheebung” Zehr der Geelihaft fr Erdbande ou Berlin 2) (186), 177-306 Because I have been unable to console this lax work, I cannot sae if differs co any degree from the book.16 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY ‘over 150 printed editions. It shaped the world that Christopher Columbus and Martin Frobisher tried to discover. For almost all of that period, it was regarded as the most authoritative and reliable account of the world Although by the eighteenth century its tales of one-eyed men, sexual phan- tasms, Amazon queens, incestuous cannibals, and other chimeras had finally cared it a well-deserved reputation for fiction, it continued to gain a fol- lowing among readers simply seeking a good yarn. And it evolved. Well into the eighteenth century and even beyond, Mandeville’ Travels regularly acquired redactors who reshaped it to attract new audiences. By comparing textual variants in key passages over time and language, itis possible co establish a pattern of cultural usage and understanding that emerged through the centuries across much of the continent of Europe. Of course, a variant may merely reflect the idiosyncrasy of one scribe of redactor, but errors are also revealing and, given the number of copies, opportunities were also afforded for correction, so errors without culeural resonance did not long survive. In addition, this was an immensely popular work, in the full sense of that word. That it existed primarily in spoken languages and regional dialects, thereby accessible o those to whom it could be read aloud, makes ita unique influence on and reflection of the values and assumptions of the under-lettered and unlettered of European society. The corpus of Mandeville manuscripts and printed texts provides a valuable insight into popular culture. The recent works of lan Macleod Higgins and David Ruddy have tried co get at such questions." Thus the booke not only repre- sents a summa of medieval European knowledge and prejudice about the rest of the world, but it is also essential for tracking the transformation of European understanding of the Other. The earliest dated extant manuscript of the Travel, in medicval French, the Paris Manuscript, completed in 1371, presents a discussion of the Sons of Noah that is worth detailed study for many reasons. It confirms the vatiabil- ity of the medieval and early modern image and identification of the Sons of Noah. It also helps to demonstrate, chrough a comparison with the printed editions of other manuscripts, a dramatic example of the way much modern scholarship has unconsciously misrepresented that understanding. It is @ ‘commonplace that early modern European explorers saw what they expected to see, Nineteenth- and ewentieth-century scholars have been repeatedly suilty of the very same error, as we shall se. ‘The Paris Manuscript described Ham as heir to Asia, Shem to Africa, and Japhet to Europe. Ham is considered the father of the Khan and hi Mongol followers, Shem the ancestor of the Saracens, and Japhet the prog: enitor of the Europeans and “the people of Israel”! This passage, to reiterate, was one of the most widely disseminated late medieval-early modern views of the Sons of Noah. It appears in the second half of the book, which is 2 Ruddy, “Scribes, Printers, and Vernacular Authority A Study in Late-Medieval and Eaaly Modera Reception of Mandeville's Travels” (Ph.D. dist, University of Michigan, 1995) and Higgins, "Writing East: The Fourtenth-Cencary “Travel of Sir John Mandevile™ (orth. coming)SONS OF NOAH u7 devoted to Mandeville’ travels in India, the East Indies, and China (but these terms had a very different meaning according to Mandevlle’s own sense of geography) and introduces a figure who plays an important role in the narrative, the Khan or Ham (as he appears in the text) ofthe Mongols First, I will cell you why he is called the Grand Ham. You ought to know that during the great downpour of long ago, all the world was destroyed by Noah's flood except for Noah, his wife and their children. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. This Ham was the one who saw the natural member of his father while he was sleeping uncovered. And he mocked him and pointed him cout. And for this he was cursed. Japhet averted his glance and cov- cred him. The three brothers took their entice lands. This Ham for his cruclty took the biggest eastern part [NOTE: this manu- script substitutes the mysterious word “chumenciel.” which seems 4 scribal corruption for the normal reading “orientale,” which I have accordingly translated] which was called Asia. Shem took Africa. And Japhet took Europe [NOTE: sometimes corrupted as “Ethiope” in two eatly versions of the same tradition—Fondation Smith-Lesouéf and Fonds Francais 25284]. And that is why the world is divided into three parts, because of the choice of the three brothers. Ham was the mightiest and the most powerful and from him came more descendants than any of the others. From cone of his sons, Nimrod the giant was born, who was the first king in the world and who started co build the tower of Babel. ‘And with him the fiends of the underworld would come fre- quently to lay with the women of his (Nimrod’s] descent and cre- ated various people, all disfigured, one without testes, another without an arm, a third with one eye, a fourth with the feet of a horse, and many others disfigured and misshapen. And from this {generation of descendants of Fam came the pagan folk and the vat- ious peoples ofthe isles of Asia. And because he was the most pow- erful and none would dare oppose him, he was called the son of God and sovereign of all the world. And because of this Ham, all the emperors have since then been called Grand Ham and the son of nature and the sovereign of all the world. And chus he calls him- self in his decrees. And of the descendants of Shem come the sracens. And of the descendants of Japhet come the people of Israel and we and the others who live in Europe. This is the opinion of the Asians and Samaritans which I had hheard before I left for India, that fr this reason he is called Ham, but when I was in India, I learned otherwise. Nevertheless the truth is that che Tartar and those who live in Asia Major ate descendants of Ham. Buc the emperors of Cathay are not called Ham, but rather Khan. 34 Nowell Acquistion Frangaise 451, Bibliodhtque Nationale (BN). The entre Pais Ms has been published along with the Egerton Ms. and other versions by Malcolm Less,n8, WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY Although the Paris Manuscript is the oldest dated manuscripe, there is no scholarly consensus that itis the oldest surviving text. There is agreement that it exhibits a number of examples of scribal corruption. With those exceptions, this excerpt is consistent with the original cext of almost every fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscript containing this section that T have thus far examined.* Nonetheless, this reading differs from some of the most readily available and well-regarded editions, notably those using the Egerton Manuscript: 1. George F. Warner, ed., The Bute of John Maundewill (889); 2. Malcolm Lets, Mandeville’ Travels (1953); and 3. C. W. R. D. Moseley, trans., The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (1983).86 These three edi- tions give Africa to Ham and Asia to Shem. Another variant is introduced by the Royal Manuscript also printed in Warner's sumpruous volume, which moves the people of Israel from Japhet to Shem. My own examination of the manuscripts has established that on this point these printed versions are mis- Mandevlle’s Travel: Tes and Tramlavons 2 vols, (London, 195). This passage, fl, 661-671, appears bid, 2354-55 | have checked Lews's txt agaist the original me. for accuracy, The ‘raralation is mine. la the absence of ext eiton, I have been preparing survey of chis passage and others based on the mas and priced editions in the Brith Libary. Bblighéque Navonae, Princeton University Library, and Pierpont Morgan Library, among other collections, This research forms the bais for my moaagraph in progres, “Mandeviles Jews, 1350-1780, 2 istorical Editon * Thus fr Ihave examined 43 me from all he cxeul talons snd meaty all the printed versions in English, French, Latin, Tian, German, Durch, Danish, and Spanish: The Gaelic and Czech versions tema. The fllowing corpus that Ihave checked tep- ‘esens approximately us of all etane manuscripts. The categorisation is bated on Seyious, ir Jobn Mandel. Writer of be Late Middle Ag ‘Continental Tradition, Subgroup A: BN fonds fr. 238s, BN Fondation Smith-Lesoutf, BN Ancient Fonds 2129, BN FF 3634, BN Nouv. Ac, Fran 4s, BL Harley 940, BN 3637, BN FF 6iog. Subgroup B: BN 10725, BN FF 20145, BN PF rao, BN EF ss86 alan Versio, ean. of Continental Veron: BL. Additional 41329, Pierpone Morgan Liraty M 746. Insular Tradition. Subgroup A: BL Haley 204, BL Haley 212, BL Harley 739, BL Harley 4385, BL Royal 20 A. i, BL Royal 20 B. x, Piepont Morgan Library M 937, Subgroup B: BL Sloane 464, Subgroup C: BL Additional 33757. BN FF 563s, BN FF asa, BN FF 5036, BN “Anciens Fonds 210. Royal Version, Lain of Insular Subgroup A: BL Royal 20 A. i, BL Royal 11 E ix, BL Harley 73, BL Cowon Appendix iv. Leiden Version, Latin made before 1390 of Subgroup B: Leiden Biblitheck der Rijlsunivenitee Vulcan 96, BL Egeron 672. Defective Version, English of Subgroup B from lst manuscripe that is mining a second gute: Subgroup 8, BL Arundel 140, BL Harley 2386, BL Harley 3954. Independently Derived: BL Royal 17 C. xxvii. Subgroup C: BL Adlvional 3758. Subgeoup D: Princeton University Library, Taylor 16. Sebgroup E: BL. Slane 319, Egeton Version: BL Egerton 1982 Lge Tradition. Lain tens. made in 137, main extant in Central Europe: BL Hatley 4589, BL Additional 37s 26 Warner, The Bue of Joby Masndeuil, being the Travels of Jobx Mondeville, Knight 1323-36. A Hisherts Unpubled English Veron fom the Unique Copy (Egerton M1982) n the Briish Mucum -. sopether with the French Tax Not, and an Tninoducrion (Lon, 189), topio; Leus, Mandeiles Tree, 4355; Moseley, tants Troe of Sr Jobm Mandeville 45 ‘The major exceptions to the Warner-Lets-Moseley reading are M. C. Seymour, cd ‘Mandevles Trace (Oxford, 1967), 61, sod Hamelin, Mandeviles Travel Tramlated from she French of Jeon d Ouremease, eed from MS. Coton Titus. XVI inthe British Muse, vo. 1 (London, 1919-192), 15-46, both bared on diferent version, the Cotton Me, BL. Carton Titus csi, Hameliue’s ateibucon of authorship to d'Outremeuse has not gained accepeance. ‘The Corton Ms. links Shem Afi nd Ham to Axia.SONS OF NOAH 19 leading. I have checked the folios in question; Egerton Manuscript 1982, folio gir, and Royal Manuscript 20 B. x, folio 6or. In both instances, scribes work- ing in the early to mid-fifteenth century, several decades after the originals ‘were composed, crossed out the original names and substituted what has become the conventional wisdom. It is important to note that the Egerton Manuscripr’s Afticanization of Ham went nowhere in the Mandeville manu- script and printed tradition. Until Warner printed those texts in the nine- teenth century, no other printed or manuscript version of Mandeville chat I hhave examined included that substitution. Although the Reyal Manuscripr's semitification of Israel bears similarities to one later subtradition of the Mandeville corpus. it had no textual influence. There is no question that Ham-Asia, Shem-Africa, and the Japhetic ancestry of Israel represented the original letefourteenth” and catly fifteenth-century versions of the manu- scripts themselves as well asthe main tradition of Mandeville as a whole. The only exception is the Ligge tradition, which omitted, among its many distine- tive editorial changes, the Noachic genealogy altogether. The chain of scholarly misrepresentation from Warner to Letts to Moseley is worth some attention because it illustrates a phenomenon at the heart of racial construction—seeing what one has been socially conditioned to see, or believing is seeing. By the nineteenth cencury, the connection of Ham with Aftica had been so deeply embedded in European consciousness that ic was seen as the correct reading even when it was clealy a later addi- tion that made no sense. Warner, as Curator of Manuscripts in. che British Museum, should have had no difficulty in identifying the manifestly differ- cent and later hand in which these changes were made. He did add, in a foot- note as was his editorial practice, that these represented scribal erasures and adjustments to the text, but in the endnote he ignored the significant fact that both corrections were made not by the original seribes but decades later.3” The focus of this story is the Great Khan of the Mongols. Iv is pare of a larger discussion dealing with Asia in general. Although Mandeville ulti- mately dismisses the Hamitic derivation of the title “Khan,” he does confi- dently reassert the Hamitic origin of the Mongols and all others who live in Asia, Yer both Letts in the authoritative edition published by the Hakluyt Society and Moseley in the popular edition published by Penguin Books copied Warner's reading, which appeated in the distinguished series pub- lished by the bibliophile Roxburghe Club, without investigating the original manuscript, without noting Warner's incomplete textual note about the scribal change, and without commenting on the logic ofthe story. Ina fash- ion consistent with his editorial practice, Letts did mention the alternative carly English reading, che Corton Manuscript, that correctly tied Ham to ‘Asia and Shem to Africa, bue he went no further. Paul Hamelius, who pub- lished the first critical edition of the Cotton Manuscript, claimed on the basis of misleading modern racial stereotypes, rather than on ancient of medieval texts, that the author of the Travels “deliberately perverted” the ti- 7 Warner, Buk ofJobn Mundell 2050 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY continental commonplaces of “Genesis [sic]” and the "Medieval commenta- tors... in order to derive the Asiatic Khan's ttle from the Biblical Cham, the owner of Africa [sicl.” Unfortunately, the authority of these misleading editions has reinforced a fundamental error in the modern depiction of medieval identity. How was European geographical understanding of the Sons of Noah transformed from the complex, vague, and variable definitions of the ancient and Middle ages tothe rigid and consistently racalizing notions of the nine- teenth and «wentieth centuries? The Mandeville text isa useful starting point to answer that question. The willful Afticanization of Ham in the emenda- tion to the Egerton Manuscript during the fifteenth cencury has a faint echo in another variant found in a different part of the Mandeville corpus. These are paralleled by an even more dramatic change in the visual ats that eulmi- nated in the fifteenth century. ‘There are surprising echoes of the heightened attention to what we now call Africa chat the Egerton Manuscript’ scribal manipulations suggest. In the late fourteenth century, about the time of the Bibliotheque Nationale Fondation Smith-Lesouéf and Fonds Francais 25284 manuscripts alluded to above, Trevisa’s On the Properties of Things claims that “laue,” suspiciously like laphet (Japhet) and his son lavan (Javan—teaditionally identified with Greece), rather than Ham, isthe father of Cush, the name of the "Ethiopes.” The late-fifteenth-century Italian printed versions of Mandeville (eight between 1480 and 1497) all repeat the link beeween Japhet and Ethiopia Unlike chose earlier instances, this cannot be dismissed as simply a careless error, because there Japhet lays claim to both Europe and Ethiopia.®? Parallel to these variants chat suggest growing awateness of Africa was the rise of the Black Magus in the European depiction of the Adoration story. It isin this very same century that a black wise man or magus becomes such a fixture of western art that fifteenth-century artists, like our fifteenth- century scribe, “corrected,” it appears, the earlier white images by success- fully black-facing one figure in the scene, as evidenced by the erosion of the dark paint from the originally whiee hands.” What makes the blackening of the magus particularly striking is that it in no way whatsoever is accompa- nied by any similar blackening of Ham. Despite the universal assumption to Hamelin, Mandeville’ Travel 23, note 4s line 29. The Wacner- Lets incomplete sealing is elected inthe authoreative John Block Friedman, The Montour Racin Medial ‘Art and Though (Cambridge, Mass 98) 100-05 the source for Fenton's account with which ty article begins. The reading har influenced ocherseudes, eg, Hora, ef. Cursor Mund 7, ote tines 2087-90. ‘Om the Properties of Thing Trevtas Tramilavion of Bartholomacus Anglicas, De Propricaibus Rear, 3754. The Fealian versions [ consulted are BL Add. Me. 42329 fo. 6, dated 1469, and all the priced versions I located in the Bish Library and che Bibliodktyue Nationale: (Milan, 1480), quire K vit recto: (Milan, 1496), quite Mil vewso; (Milan 1497). ‘quite Liv recto: Bologna, 148), quire H i reco; (Bologna, 1492), quite Fi ret: (Bologna, 1497), gute G iv recto: (Hotence, 1492, gute Hi rect: and (Venice, 496), qulte LW recto. ‘s'Paul H. D. Kaplan, The Rise of he Black Magasin Wenern dr (An Arbor. 1985), ep.SONS OF NOAH nr the contrary, there is—as far as my investigation ro this date can reveal—no black Ham in western art until the nineteenth or twentieth cencury"? Even when Ham is unequivocally identified with Africa, as was the case with ‘Aelti's introduction to the Bible, the illustrations in the cleventh-century ‘manuscript portray the supposedly African Ham as white as his brethren.!? Similarly, inthe only illustrated Cross and Oeb Teon that Ihave seen, from a Aftcenth-century French illuminated manuscript, the African Ham is white The same is true for Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle ‘which was printed in German and English in at least ewo thousand copies, a hhuge number for the late fifteenth century. Although in ancient and medieval portrayals of Ham's descendants black faces do at rare times appear, even they are an inconsistent and lonely minority. For instance, a thirteenth- ‘century genealogy of Christ that has been reproduced in at least two lavishly illustrated modern works portrays Ham's descendants. While the figures linked to Cush have the curly hair characteristic of stereotypical blacks and are set in Ethiopia, all the others (including those linked co Cush’s son Nimrod) are straight-haiced. Moreover, every single figure including the curly-haired Cushites themselves is white. So pervasive are the racializing assumptions endemic to modern scholarship, however, that respected art his- torians, unable to distinguish white from black, have described these white Gashites as "black." A true exception to the whiteness of western represen- 4 This statement is bated frst onthe engopedic mulkvolume The Image of the Black in Wonera Art, get. ed Lis Bugaer, vo. Jean Veroute, Jean Leant, Frank M. Soowden 0. and Jehan Deanges From the Pharaoh the Pal ofthe Roman Enpie ((New Yor, 1976): vl. 2 pts lean Devine, Bom the Early Chvsian Brat te “Age af Dicnery Frm the Demon Tet ‘he Incarnation of Santood, cane. Willam Granger Ryan ((New Yoru, 1979) val 2 pe 2 Devise find Michel Melt, Fom she Early Chon Ena the “Ae of Dicover Aan sn he Cristian Ondinance of the World (Foren othe Saeenth Century ans, yan (New York], 1979; vl. ts Hugh Honour, Pom she American Revolution so World War I Slave and Liberator ((NeW {Ynk it) and vol 4, pe Honour, Fm the American Revlon to World War I: Black Mode tand White Mjah (Cambridge, 1983). "The crocial 3d volume, “Alrica and Europe: Siatenth co Eighteenth Century." iin preparaon, lao examined the Index of Chistian Ar at Princxon Univesity, an encyclopedic visa restate houte covering che ancient and medical periods Fr the sabuequentceaturen, | consulted the admitedy lew thorough visual colecion sche Warbur insiae, University of London, Iam more confident that Ham was oe black in the medieval peri than eraty when he ter di become black. The isorian of medieval are Waler Cahn, in June bn 1996 comerston,coaltmed my conclusions. For aothcensry racial representations of Shem, Ham, and Jape sce Abel Pann, Die Bibl in Bdrm (leraslem apd Vienna 1926), andthe Taba fase agate cover produced in Mate Shell, Children ofthe Earth Lteerre, Polis, ad ond ew Yr. 995) 8 9c German pining ances hail eng of there soe-cenary works, bu stily speaking it represents the decendans of Ham, Shem, an Janke rather than the progenitors themselves see Johann Friedach Ovesbeck, Baptism, 186185, reproduced in Honour, gue 13, Image ofthe Black in Wesers Ar. wl 4 t 1193 Ose Aelii, The Heptateuch, Briah Library, Mr. Cotton Claudius B. 1V,fls. 17, sy, reproduced in The Old English Mlttated Hevateuch, e8. CR. Dodwell and Peter ‘Clemees (Copeatagen. 974) ‘see the folio fom the ms, by Jean Mansel, "La fleur des histoire,” veproduced in Destombes, Mappemondes plate XX. “W Nremberg Chromic flr 396 145. 1 Sec the relevant discussions se well a the genealogical char eprodaced in cage of she ‘lack in Wesern Are. vol % pee 42-4) which 5 to be prefered the misleading croppedna WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY tations is the Byzantine tradition, preserved through at least four illuminated manuscripts from the eleventh and twelfth centuries: the descendants of Noah's sons are presented in a spectrum of five hues from white to black with, however, no indication of identity-4° Because the Byzantine empire had ruled until the Arab-Muslim conquests of the seventh century and subsequently maintained close contacts with a great variety of peoples in southwest Asia and northeast Africa, such awareness is not surprising. Yet even here there is no black Ham. The Nuremberg Chronicle provides further evidence of the unstable medieval identities of the Noahides. In the original Latin and German edi- tions (1493), not only is Ham white, as indicated above, but so are all his sons (Folios 14 verso-15 recto), including Cush, and all their descendants, with one exception. Not until generations later does a lonely black face, Dedan, appear in Schede!’s elaborate illustrated genealogical table—on the lower-right-hand corner of the page, the last possible opportunity, almost an afterthought. Only he has che dark skin, curly hair, and full lips of a stereo- typical sub-Saharan African (see Figure 1). The fluid character of Noachic identities emerges even more forcefully in the cheap knockoffs of Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle produced in Augsburg a few years later.*? These reprinted the original rext but saved money through crude imitations of the artistically elaborate and costly illustrations that decorated the original. In the British Library Latin edition (Augsburg, 1497, signature C iv verso), the representation of Ham’s line is eruder but in terms of skin color (Dedan included) similar o the original. Shem's line, however, presents a curious switch, Havilah, Shem’s descendant, who in the original is white, becomes black (signa- ture D ili recto), portrayed by the exact same figure as that used for Dedan. In the German edition (Augsburg, 1500), in general the text and illustrations are of the same character as the Latin, but there itis one of Ham’s descendants who undergoes a change. Dedan becomes white (British Library copy, signature C iv verso; Newberry Library copy, folio xv verso) (sce Figure 11), and Havilah remains black (Brieish Library copy. signature D ili recto: Newberry Library copy, folio xvi recto) (see Figure IID), as in the Latin version of 1497. In the late reproduction in Ruth Melinkoff, Outcaz: Signs of Others in Norther Eurgpean Art ofthe ve Midale Ages 2 vos, (Betkeley, 199). 303, plate x25 Canpages). ‘The reproductions that | have seen of these mar Bear no indication which hue belongs to which descendant of which son, The illustration, captioned clay inthe mt el, "ht tn tou Noe bun apégane," hats, “the descendants ofthe sons of Noah,” presents s groups, each ‘oataining 3 male, Each group is cnted and clothed differen from the others, fom lef 10 Fight whit, browa, tan, dark brown, and black, Since Noah had 16 grandsons—s through Shem, 4 through Ham. and 7 chough Japher—the 5 depiced donor suggest any obvious com rection tothe biblical account. For color eeproductioas of the 1th-ceneury Constantinople (erateach, Biblioteca Apostaica Vatiana, Ms. Vat. 746, see Image of the Black in Wesern ‘ra vol 2 pe. i s01. At the Princeton Index of Chistian Art I have examined black-and-white ‘eproductions of wey similar depictions from the sith-centuty Ms. Vat. gr. 747, the Tathcen- tury Ms: Topkapi Palace Me. 8, and no longer extant ms. ofthe same eva repraduced in Dirk Chriscinan Hesling, ed, Octatngue gre de Smrne (Leiden, 1909) that Ihave been unable to consul directly. "© Ragiaram baju pei libri ernicarum ... (Augsburg, 1497), and Schedel, Dat buch der CGroniden (Augsburg 1500).SONS OF NOAH. 13 Ficune L Family Tree of Ham, from Hartmann Schedel, Das Buch der Croniken und Gachichten (Nuremberg, 1493), folios tav-is. Ham, in the upper left-hand come, is white, and so ar all of his descen- ants, including Cush, with one exception, in this well-known and widely dis- teibuted fifteenth-cencury work. Almost as an afterthought, Dadan (Dedan) appeats in the lowe ind corner—stereotypcaly black withthe curly hai, dark skin, and full ips of che sub-Saharan African. The same illustration appears in the Latin version (Nuremberg, 1493)- fifteenth cencury, racial stereotyping of Noah's offspring was not sufficiently ‘established to overcome the helterskelter instincts of the printer’s workshop. The simplest explanation for che medieval whiteness of Ham and most of his offspring is that even to the limited and uncertain degree that Ham was linked to Africa, the continent remained for most Europeans simply another coast of the more of less familiar Mediterranean world, not dramati- cally different from the rest. The most famous African was St. Augustine of Hippo. His mid-fifteenth-cencury biographer, John Capgrave, defined Africa