Why Minorities Were Neither Tolerated nor Discriminated Against in the Middle Ages
By Klaus van Eickels
Discrimination and tolerance in historical perspective, edited by Gudmundur Hálfdanarson (Plus-Pisa University Press, 2008)
Marginal Illustration from the Chronicles of Offa (British Library, Cotton Nero D. I.), folio 183v, Jews being persecuted. Illustration by Matthew Paris.
Introduction: Discrimination and tolerance are asymmetrical concepts in present day usage. Tolerance has a positive meaning and denotes the attitude of a majority that accepts deviant forms of reasoning or behaviour practiced by a minority. On the other hand, discrimination has a negative meaning and denotes their sanctioning by legal or social disadvantages. Unlike today, medieval societies did not see tolerance and neutrality as legitimate options. Minorities were integrated by assigning them a subordinate place in society. They could only be granted the freedom to lead their own way of life if they were ready to accept the existing order by visible submission. Tolerance and discrimination therefore can dangerous concepts for an analysis of medieval social practice, since pre-modern societies considered discrimination the prerequisite, not the opposite of granting tolerance.
Discrimination and tolerance are asymmetrical concepts in present-day usage. Tolerance means accepting forms of behaviour and thought of which the speaker does not approve. However, it implies that such lenience can be justified (e.g. by the pragmatic reason of maintaining social peace in the situation in question). The term ‘tolerance’ therefore qualifies as laudable a behaviour or attitude which, under other circumstances or from a different point of view, could also be called indifferent or negligent. A judge who condemns criminals to prison sentences for committing an intolerable offence therefore would not be called “intolerant” or “discriminating” (at least not as long as the speaker shares the judge’s assessment of the facts and the crime upon which his sentence is founded).
Similarly, discrimination in present-day political discourse labels as unjustified the exclusion of an individual or a group of individuals from economic and cultural resources, from participation in social networks or from social advancement. No historian would doubt that discrimination in the genuine sense of the word is necessary; despite new methodological approaches, the discrimen veri ac falsi remains the first and essential step of any critical source-analysis. The adjective “indiscriminate” still has preserved the original Latin meaning. We can safely assume that a person disapproves of the behaviour in question when he speaks of “indiscriminate violence”, “indiscriminate choice of sex partners” or an “indiscriminate use of reliable and unreliable sources”. The noun “discrimination”, however, and the corresponding verb “to discriminate” (tellingly almost exclusively used with the preposition “against” today) can no longer be used in a positive sense in everyday language. If the reasons for discrimination are well-founded, the word seems out of place. Ivy League universities do not discriminate against less than excellent applicants when they choose to admit only students with the best marks.
Why Minorities Were Neither Tolerated nor Discriminated Against in the Middle Ages
By Klaus van Eickels
Discrimination and tolerance in historical perspective, edited by Gudmundur Hálfdanarson (Plus-Pisa University Press, 2008)
Introduction: Discrimination and tolerance are asymmetrical concepts in present day usage. Tolerance has a positive meaning and denotes the attitude of a majority that accepts deviant forms of reasoning or behaviour practiced by a minority. On the other hand, discrimination has a negative meaning and denotes their sanctioning by legal or social disadvantages. Unlike today, medieval societies did not see tolerance and neutrality as legitimate options. Minorities were integrated by assigning them a subordinate place in society. They could only be granted the freedom to lead their own way of life if they were ready to accept the existing order by visible submission. Tolerance and discrimination therefore can dangerous concepts for an analysis of medieval social practice, since pre-modern societies considered discrimination the prerequisite, not the opposite of granting tolerance.
Discrimination and tolerance are asymmetrical concepts in present-day usage. Tolerance means accepting forms of behaviour and thought of which the speaker does not approve. However, it implies that such lenience can be justified (e.g. by the pragmatic reason of maintaining social peace in the situation in question). The term ‘tolerance’ therefore qualifies as laudable a behaviour or attitude which, under other circumstances or from a different point of view, could also be called indifferent or negligent. A judge who condemns criminals to prison sentences for committing an intolerable offence therefore would not be called “intolerant” or “discriminating” (at least not as long as the speaker shares the judge’s assessment of the facts and the crime upon which his sentence is founded).
Similarly, discrimination in present-day political discourse labels as unjustified the exclusion of an individual or a group of individuals from economic and cultural resources, from participation in social networks or from social advancement. No historian would doubt that discrimination in the genuine sense of the word is necessary; despite new methodological approaches, the discrimen veri ac falsi remains the first and essential step of any critical source-analysis. The adjective “indiscriminate” still has preserved the original Latin meaning. We can safely assume that a person disapproves of the behaviour in question when he speaks of “indiscriminate violence”, “indiscriminate choice of sex partners” or an “indiscriminate use of reliable and unreliable sources”. The noun “discrimination”, however, and the corresponding verb “to discriminate” (tellingly almost exclusively used with the preposition “against” today) can no longer be used in a positive sense in everyday language. If the reasons for discrimination are well-founded, the word seems out of place. Ivy League universities do not discriminate against less than excellent applicants when they choose to admit only students with the best marks.
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