True that.
I even found it very funny when they accused kingdom come: deliverance of being racist because no black characters were in the game.
The setting is fucking medieval! There were no black people in Europe back then.
On the other hand I only know some Netflix series where they add all characters of the lbqt+ spectrum but give them no story or any meanings to that.
no black people in medieval Europe
In general, there’s almost always an exception which disproves any such rule. People across history have lived all sorts of lives.
https://www.simon-hartman.com/post/the-presence-of-africans-in-european-history
in this case i think we can all tell that “no” means “practically none” not like there was some law of physics stopping it
Your first source is a costume-designer with a very obvious agenda talking about European history. She sources little of her statements, some of them with actual pieces of fiction (including anachronistic art).
Your second source basically amounts to “contemporary writers didn’t say there weren’t Africans in Europe *wink*”. It’s written like your typical ancient aliens stuff.
The third describes more the spread of influence than the actual populace, and is written by Runoko Rashidi, an afrocentrist “historian” who liked to claim historical figures were black in spite of when evidence to the contrary existed. These folks are colloquially known as “hoteps” in some circles.
Obviously given the nature of humans, cultures, and empires, it is likely some amount of black Africans ended up in Europe. That said, given historical records as understood by actual historians, we have reason to believe there were not many of them. Why does it even matter though? What would black Africans being in Europe even prove?
I disagree that the first source has an agenda, it seems more that she’s just enthusiastically describing her subject matter. She cites other scholars and artwork, which isn’t necessarily anachronistic as it was made at that time. I’d say the same about the second source.
Here’s some more art work being described. The source is approachable and meant to encourage further reading for anyone interested, https://www.thehumanityarchive.com/articles/black-people-medieval-europe
For the last source, maybe that person had a pov to sell so it does make them less reliable, but if other historical artifacts or sources prove them right, then overall point of this remains the same.
The reason I brought it up was because someone said colored POC didn’t make sense in a medieval Europe game setting. I agree that there were probably less of them, but including the presence of such people in a game setting is just reality. Why is that such an issue for people? Those people need to get over it.
Here’s more scholarly resources https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0326.xml
And a more approachable one, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/deconstructing-the-moors-black-presence-the-united-kingdom-and-during-the-tudor-period
Wow, so nobody traveled across the Mediterranean until the modern era? Gosh!