Just as an aside, but I’ve been meaning to post a link to this wonderful “Medieval Persons of Colour” blog since forever. This blog travels extensively though art to point out that even in the “typical” medieval European periods depicted in film and present-day literature, there is absolutely no justification to whine and demand that all characters be “white” or to accuse works that include a non-white character to be some kind of inauthentic tokenism in se. Yeah, this goes for Tolkien and Co.

The blog author’s most recent posts are on 1800s art, which are most certainly not medieval by conventional definitions, but that’s only after an enormous quantity of pieces posted from times past. It’s an extensive bank of evidence that “white” Europeans have always interhabited with persons of colour who were not merely or always transients and servants. Of course, some of us always knew this, but check it out.